


Reaped

by TalesOfOnyxBats



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, stolen Soul
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-23
Updated: 2018-10-14
Packaged: 2019-06-15 06:04:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 31,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15406632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TalesOfOnyxBats/pseuds/TalesOfOnyxBats
Summary: AU where Regina’s soul actually gets taken my the wraith. Emma tries to help her get it back and recover.





	1. The Soul Claimer

Fear and pain had been with Regina for as long as she could remember. She was afraid of her mother and her mother made her afraid to be herself. She was afraid to be different, afraid to be bold. Later on in life she feared losing her power, feared the braking of her curse, and feared losing Henry. And soon even those fears had come to pass. She had no magic, the curse was broken and Henry wanted nothing to do with her. Now that the worst of her fears were already in motion, few things scared her anymore. For a very brief period she could only name one thing really, that terrified her; solitude. She didn’t want to die alone. She didn’t want to die alone, and yet she hated everyone around her. The returned the gesture. She came to find that the only concept that horrified her worse was the thought of living alone. Living alone and being alone as a fresh, new fear unfurled in front of her. 

The Enchanted Forest had so many terrors to display; Regina had seen ogres and found herself in the company of a wild band of trolls. She’d had her run-ins with bandits and a brush or two with spiders bigger than moose. Werewolves were almost common place and eventually she’d become one of the Enchanted Forest’s terrors. But never had the forest flashed her with such a startling fate as Storybrooke was presenting her, via Mr. Gold. In all her life she had never heard a wail so forlorn and so inhuman. The sound hit her ear in the most unpleasant way. Confined in her teeny cell—that was feeling smaller and smaller still, the closer that thing came—all she could do was cover her ears and whimper softly to herself. Curled up on the bed, she tried not to whimper, tried not to make a sound—especially not a sound that was so meek and timid. A sound that didn’t suit her at all. But she was shaking uncontrollably, she knew what was coming. They liked to claim that she had no soul but she did, and God, she wanted to keep it, however dark it was. 

When the lights sputtered and died she knew that she would be next. They surged on only once more before darkness engulfed she and the room fully. Regina could see the moon filtering through the window and wondered if there was a person in the world who knew that she was in dreadful trouble. Even if there was, she couldn’t see anyone leaping to come to her aid. That hellish howl droned out again, long and grim. This time she could detect guttural undertones that chilled her through and through.  
It was near, so very near. 

Instinctively she pushed herself further into the corner and deeper into the bed, as if that could conceal her somehow. There approached something darker than the darkness around it. A smudge of fluttering black that was complete save for two spots of red. To her those spots were more fear inducing than the blackness, because they were fixed on her. She stood, slowly and some wobbly as the cell door threw itself open. A violent clatter echoed about the room as the bars contacted the wall. She dared to edge forward an inch or two. Maybe, if life would offer her a little luck, she could muster up enough magic to ward it off and sprint as far as she could. She tried to the best of her ability but she just couldn’t muster up that spark. She felt as ordinary as the girl she’d been when under her mother’s thumb. The wraith didn’t even allow her the time to slump to he knees before it extended its arm. A wet looking, boney arm that ended with long claws. The kind meant to rake at the face and leave a person weeping. Tattered cloth fluttered and billowed about that skeletal arm in a draft that wasn’t there. 

Regina might have uttered a word or two but it was lost to another wail. She didn’t remember what she had whispered. She found it hard to think with her soul in the wraith’s grasp. It was a frigid feeling, like no cold she’d ever felt. No cold of this world or in any of those she’d been. No, this was a hollow sort of cold. Icy tendrils licked and lapped at her soul, twisting about it like some wicked vine. She felt a tug that was both physical and spiritual. All the woman could manage was a strangled gasp. Regina had never seen a soul before, she didn’t think she ever had a desire to do so. She pined even less for the sight now that it was her own soul before her. It was shockingly white, a cloud accented by blue, like meteor fire. She thought that it looked like a meteor as it leapt from her body into the hands of the wraith. Such was the last coherent though Regina had before an overwhelming barrage of sorrow befell her. The mayor was a dismal woman as it were without the aid of the wraith. With its help she felt downright depressed more void of hope than she’d ever been. Miles of melancholy memories stretched out before her playing all at the same time in one distorted blur of awful emotions. She mistook it for mercy, for the smallest blip in time, when those feelings fell away.  
But then a bleak sort of nothingness set in. Something was missing. Deep within herself she sought it out. But she couldn’t find it. She couldn’t even remember what it was. And if she couldn’t even recall that much, what good did it do her to search? That kind of resignation came with a numbness she couldn’t find the drive to fill. 

Regina Mills feel to her knees and watched a blanket of black retreat. She had been afraid of something…  
Whatever it was faint residues of fear still pulsed within her. 

And she was still very much alone.


	2. Hollow

Emma finds her laying on the floor in something of a heap. There was something wrong, deeply so. Emma doesn’t know how to explain it. The door of Regina’s cell had been torn open but the woman inside hadn’t moved an inch. She knelt down and gave the former mayor a tap. Thankfully she was still breathing. Breathing and seemingly unharmed, but she still didn’t respond. Not an angry lash out nor a cheerful greeting. No, Regina didn’t move at all and didn’t give any indication of doing so. The woman was never one for indifference, at the best of times she was a menagerie of rather intense emotions, mostly on the negative side.”Regina.” Emma tried. 

 

That time Regina looked back and up. But a distant acknowledgement of her presence was all that Emma received. Her eyes are so dead, so... null in some inexplicable way. Something was definitely amiss and for some reason Emma cared. She repeated Regina’s name again, this time softer. The woman on the floor still didn’t respond, save for a now unrelenting stare. 

And then she reaches out forlornly. “It’s so bright.”

 

Emma cocked her head. “What is, Regina?”

 

Her hand quivered as her hands clamp, unclamp, and then clamp again around nothing at all. 

 

“But...I. Can’t have it.” Her hand fell limp.

 

Emma furrowed her brows with a good deal of hesitation, she scooped Regina into her arms. The woman felt somehow so delicate. Her completely passive reaction to being lifted at all hiked Emma’s unease to a new height. Mary...Snow...her mother--Emma still couldn’t decide how to address her--was going to kill her for removing Regina from her cell. Granted the door had been open when she arrived. 

 

Regina was slack all over for the duration of their walk. The rigid and tense poise she carried herself with regularly was as void as her eyes were. Her head drooped as though she couldn’t be bothered to hold it up even slightly. Eventually Emma shifted her hold to accommodate, lest the woman’s head flop around.  _ What happened to you? _ She wondered to herself. The former mayor had been fine--relatively speaking, anyhow--the night before.

 

Mary wasn’t home when Emma arrived, she counted her blessings for that; it would be easier to tell the woman about Regina before she saw the former mayor lying awake in her bed. Much easier than it would have been if she’d been caught carrying the woman inside. She tucked Regina under the covers, expecting some form of protest--be it about the position she laid her in or the manner in which she’d arranged the pillows and blankets. But Regina still remained startlingly impassive.

 

Henry wandered in hours before Mary and David, his eyes falling on his adoptive mother. His face scrunched, “is she okay?”

 

Emma stumbled over her words, only managing to get one or two starter words out before backtracking and trying again. Finally she sputters out the truth, “I don’t know, Henry. I don’t even know what happened to her.” 

That same part of her that churned with sympathy for Regina had her belly knotting more. She wasn’t responding to Henry’s voice either. And when he greeted, ‘hi...mom’ and cautiously touched her hand, she only stared at the ceiling. Even the grumpy, high-strung mayor that Emma knew, would perk up. Especially since he had called her ‘mom’. Yet the woman before her couldn’t be bothered to look at her son.

Emma came to conclude that Regina was severely depressed.

 

“What’s wrong?” Henry asked. 

 

Finally she averted her gaze from the ceiling, she turned her head only slightly and replied quietly, “something is missing.” There was something else. Something whispered that Emma couldn’t hope to catch. And then a single word, “hollow.” 

 

Hollow.

It was the prefect descriptor of what Emma was seeing. 

Regina was hollow from her eyes to her demeanor. Sullen and withdrawn. 

She supposed that it made sense considering that Regina had just lost everything from her curse to Henry. She had no companions that Emma could name and a town full of people who would have her executed had they been in their old world. Maybe she should take the woman to see Archie, he seemed like the kind who would lend an unjudging ear despite it all.

 

Instead she let Regina lay there as she worked out a way to explain things. Odds were that David had already dropped by the Storybrooke police station to find it empty. Odds were that he gave Mary a very quick dial. Odds were the she then phoned Ruby…

 

**.oOo.**

 

The day was merciful to Emma, neither of her parents had dropped by the police station at all that morning. They had planned on dropping by at noon as she had found out upon entering Granny’s. She had been hesitant to leave Regina alone, but the more she thought about it, the less she feared. If the woman couldn’t have been bothered to escape her jail cell, then she couldn’t be expected to stir up any other kind of trouble. The company of Henry only sealed the deal, with any luck, he would be able to lift her spirits. 

 

“Why aren’t you at the station?” Mary asked. 

 

“Well.” She paused, all of that time and she still hadn’t come up with anything good to say. “Something came up.” 

 

David prompted her to continue. 

 

She decided, on the spot, that the truth would be a hulluva lot easier. “When I got there this morning, I found Regina’s cell wide open.” Before anyone could get a word out she continued, “but she was just laying there…” she paused once more. “She wasn’t hurt but…” and when no one filled in, “but she didn’t even seem to notice that the cell door was open.” She ran her fingers through her hairline. “Or she didn’t care.” This time she looked around and dropped her voice a notch or two. “So I took her home.”

 

“You what?” Mary mouthed. 

 

“I took her home because, believe it or not, and I know it’s hard to believe, I’m worried about her.” Emma replied. “She isn’t doing good.”

 

David rubbed his forehead as Mary appeared to be turning it over in her mind. “What do you mean, ‘she isn’t doing good?’”

 

“I…” Emma started. “Just come home and look at her. It looks like she’s one more bad event away from death.” 

 

“So, what? You’re going to coddle and care for her now?” Ruby set a tray of fries before Emma. “She’s the Evil Queen not the Sugar Plum Fairy.” 

 

Emma pinched the bridge of her nose. Normally she would have laughed. It was kind of funny, all the same this wasn’t a giggly situation and it wasn’t meant for Ruby’s ears anyhow. “I’m not going to coddle. I don’t know what I’m going to do.” 

 

Ruby snorted indignantly. “Has she done anything to deserve your help?” 

 

_ No _ , Emma responded inwardly. “I’m the…” she loathed to say it out loud. “Savior. I can’t just pick and choose who to save. I mean I can but, I think that I want to help her.”

 

Ruby rolled her eyes and to Mary grumbled, “she’s definitely  _ your  _ daughter, she has  _ your  _ hero complex.”

 

“You should see how she looks at Henry.” Emma suppresses a shudder thinking about how dreadfully absent that very look had been earlier. “If she’s really as awful as people say, I don’t think she would care so much about him.”

 

Mary sighed and exchanged a look with David. One that indicated that discussing the saving of and moral capability of Regina Mills was somewhat commonplace and likely hadn’t gone over too well in the past. Maybe she was as childish as Regina accused her of being, because with herself, she declared that things would go differently this time. 

All she had to do was get to the core of what had left Regina looking and feeling so dismal. 

 

**.oOo.**

 

Regina absently fingered the blankets, bunching them and unbunching them in her hands. She can’t seem to figure out what is missing. But she wants it back so badly. A sort of hunger resides within her but she knew, from somewhere within, that it couldn’t be filled. 

 

Her eyes found Henry. The same part of her that is still trying to assess what is no longer there, is afraid. Fearful of her indifference to the boy. And that same part of her wants to feel joy, knows that she should feel at least a teeny prickle of delight. But she doesn’t. 

She is incapable. 

 

She thinks that she might have always been this way.

Emptly. 

Melancholy. 

Hollow. 


	3. Bright And Vivid Things

For all of the ignoring she’d done in the few days prior, Regina seemed so fixated on Henry now. She was sitting cross-legged on the floor, staring at the boy. “So bright, so vivid.” It was a constant stream that flowed from her lips, repeated over and over again as if she couldn’t stop if she wanted to. It disturbed Emma in a way that she couldn’t grasp. 

She would touch Henry’s cheek, stroke it almost. Something about the motion was uncanny. There was a longing in her eyes that Emma couldn’t decipher. 

Soon it became too much to endure so she called from the other room, “Henry, I set out some nachos and dip!” 

 

She watched Henry say something to Regina, probably an ‘I’ll be right back’, before tugging out of her grip. Her hand fell limply to the floor and her expression dimmed even further. When he found his way to her, Emma passed him a handful of chips. “Join you in a sec’, kid.” She muttered. Though she wasn’t sure that it truly would be only a second. 

 

Regina hadn’t even moved her hand, the only movement she made was one that had her slumped over, looking as dismal as ever. Emma lowered herself to the ground and tilted Regina’s head up. In her eyes she still saw nothing. Nothing at all; no sorrow, no pain, nothing, nothing, nothing. “What’s going on with you?” She asked more to herself, knowing that the former mayor wouldn’t be answering her. She gave those soft brown eyes another study. Not even a slight twinkle. She had never seen Regina at her lowest, but she imagined that depression couldn’t  _ completely  _ suck the life out of someone’s eyes, not like this. But what else could it be? Just what had her so off put? Emma rubbed her forehead, frustrated with her own inability to explain why Regina was unsettling her so--aside from that she was Regina. 

 

“Mom, you said ‘a sec’, it’s been more than a second.” 

 

“Yeah.” She called back. “I’m coming.” She thought for a moment before posing an offer, “do you want to join us?” The woman remained quiet, Emma didn’t know what she had been expecting. “Well, if you change your mind…”

Emma was on her feet when something caught her eyes, she narrowed them and peered at Regina’s upturned palm. Just like that she was squatting again, lifting Regina’s hand to inspect it more closely. 

 

The symbol resembled a pitchfork with a short middle prong. Near the bottom of the handle were two horizontal slashes. The whole of it was encircled. And it was burned into Regina’s hand. The symbol itself seemed to be formed of blisters, appearing extra white against the agitated pink of her skin. Emma drew in a sucking breath, it looked terribly painful and yet the woman had been gripping things in that hand without a hint of discomfort. “What is that? Where did you…” she trailed off. The questions were better meant for a different set of ears. A very particular set of them, in fact. She captured a quick image on her phone. “I’ll be right there.” Emma called to Henry again before carrying Regina back to bed. 

 

Her brain was buzzing, she wasn’t looking at depression, this was something else. Possibly worse; the notion of something worse than depression alone disoriented her thoughts. Dipping nachos into salsa was the last thing on her mind.She did it absently and simply nodded at Henry’s stories, feeling bad for doing so. All the same she couldn’t waltz over to Gold’s shop without any dialog in mind. Really, she should wait for David and Mary. Strength in numbers after all. “Mhm..” Emma mumbled. 

 

“Mhm, what? I asked you a question.” She could tell that Henry was growing irritated having caught her, a second time at that, not focusing on him. 

 

“Sorry. What did you ask, kid?” 

 

“I want to know what’s wrong with Regina.” 

 

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out.” She confessed. “I think I’m going to have to talk to Gold--”

 

“No!” Henry shouted. “You already know what happens when you talk to the dark one.”

 

Emma sighed, this was exactly why she had been so reluctant to tell him at all. “I need to talk to him if I’m going to find out what happened to her. That’s savior stuff, right? Doing risky and bold things to help people out.” 

 

She follows Henry’s gaze over to Regina. She still lay on her back as Emma had set her down, but she turned her head to press her left cheek against the pillow. A curtain of increasingly unkempt hair obscures those tired, empty eyes. “Right, mom.” He finally agrees. 

 

“Don’t worry, kid, I’m gonna take your grandparents with me.” She assures him. “So I’m going to need you to take care of Regina again. See if you can get her to eat, if you can’t, I’ll take care of that when I get home.”

 

**.oOo.**

 

Emma couldn’t even begin to describe what a displeasure it was to be standing at the door of Gold’s Pawn Shop once again, bracing herself for another battle of wits and strenuous mental gymnastics. The only one who looked less pleased was David. 

 

“Ready?” Emma asked. 

 

“Whenever you are.” 

 

One small chiming ding and the trio stood in the shop. Instead of Mr. Gold, Emma spots a woman. Rather cute, with a bit of a baby face. She wondered what the woman was doing there. Before she could inquire, Gold emerged from the back. “I don’t recall expecting anyone.”

 

“The sign says your open.” Emma quipped. 

 

“I don’t recall expecting a visit from the savior.” He specified. “To what do I owe the honor.” 

 

“What is this?” She held her phone out. 

 

“That is a cellphone, dearie. I do believe you’ve had more experience with them than I.”

 

Emma scoffed. “Not the phone, the symbol.” 

 

“Ah, yes.” He drawled. “The symbol. That, dearie, you can think of as a gift. A solution to your Evil Queen problem.”

 

“What did you do to her?” 

 

“I introduced her to a wraith.”

 

“A what?” Mary asked. 

 

“A soulsucker.” Mr. Gold answered. “She took something precious from me. I returned the favor.” 

 

“You took her soul!?” Emma sputtered. 

 

“She wasn’t using it anyways.” Mr. Gold shrugged. “Tell me, dearie, why does it matter to you what happens to the Evil Queen?” When she didn’t give him the answer he sought he added, “I was kind enough to answer your questions.”

 

“Because Henry asked me to make sure nothing happened to her.” That was the easy response. She still didn’t have a real explanation, aside from faintly considering that Regina had a glimmer of good in her. She can’t explain it, but she could sense it. Perhaps she thought that, saving the former mayor would be the push she needed to bring her back into the light. “How do I fix it.”

 

Mr. Gold sniffed, “now there’s a question that doesn’t do me well to answer.” 

 

“Name your price.”

 

“That answer is not for sale.” Mr. Gold declined. “I can’t have her around to meddle with...my things any further.”

 

“I’m not a thing.” The woman furrowed her brows. 

 

Emma found herself puzzled all over again. “Who is that?”

 

“No one.”

 

“I’m Belle French.” She introduced herself. “Not a something.” 

 

He was punishing Regina for meddling with Belle. As per usual, Emma found that one answer led to many more questions. Namly she’d love to know what this Belle meant to Gold; what kind of relationship would lead him to go to such lengths. She also had to wonder just what Regina had tampered with this time and how she’d done it. More and more, Emma was finding that Regina had a knack for wandering far down shit creek and getting stranded there. 

 

“What is she talking about?” She heard Belle inquire. “I told you not to kill her.”

 

“I didn’t  _ kill  _ her.” Mr. Gold replied.  “I kept my word.”

 

Belle’s expression was mixed in nature. A cross between disappointment, anger, and betrayal. “And you thought that having her soul taken was better?”

 

“Oh, absolutely not, dearie. I knew that it was worse.” 

 

Hurt twisted and contorted her features further. “I thought you changed.”

 

“In the day you’ve known me?”

 

Emma thought to hurry after her. Instead she held her glare, words of comfort were Mary’s thing anyhow. “This isn’t over, Gold.” 

 

“Yes, I would agree, you still owe me a favor.”

 

He just loved holding that one over her head. It was just what she wasn’t thinking about at that moment. “You better not tell me not to help…”

 

“I wouldn’t waste my favor. Help the queen if you want. She will be  _ your  _ problem after all. Just don’t expect any hints or advice.” Over his shoulder he added, “And if you do manage to recover her soul, don’t come to me when she starts causing you strife again.”  


	4. Through The Motions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that this chapter isn't the best. It's been one of those, 'force myself to write through writer's block and my bad mood' kind of days.

Emma’s next plan was to go see Mother Superior. As a fairy, surly she had to know a little something about wraiths. Yet, she couldn’t see the Blue Fairy wanting to help the Evil Queen no matter how excessive her punishment was. She wondered if she should bring Regina along, it might help to wave in Blue’s face, just how pitiful the former mayor’s state was.

Still, Regina wasn’t giving any indication that she was going to get up and make it easy for Emma to take her to Blue. Most things, Regina didn’t make easy. Dressing and feeding herself had become two of those things--the woman simply hadn’t the desire to do either. And so it fell on Emma to meet Regina’s basic needs for her. Mostly, she didn’t mind. While Regina didn’t offer any assistance, she didn’t put up a fight either. She would sit passively and let Emma dress her in whatever. Nine of ten times, Emma fetched something from the mayor’s regular wardrobe, but every now and again she would try something new, just to see if it would spark some kind of reaction. First she simply dressed Regina in something more comfortable; a simple pair of sweatpants and an even simpler T-shirt. After that she dressed Regina in clothing from her own wardrobe, red leather jacket and all--still no reaction. In a last ditch effort, she pulled something from Mary’s closet. Regina wore it without protest.   
After that, Emma resigned to simply dressing the woman in her own clothes and then eventually, more sweatpants. The comfier the outfit looked, the easier it was to get the woman into. 

“Come on Regina, time to get out of bed.” 

She turned her head but made no other motion. At least this time she was acknowledging Emma. She sighed, and took the former mayor into her arms. In the week or so that had come to pass, Emma had grown accustomed to carrying the woman. She wasn’t entirely unpleasant. Emma tried to make conversation—she knew that Regina could responded it was just a matter of if she would. She hoped that Regina might know of a way to help herself. So she inquired, “do you remember what happened to you?” 

As per usual, she held her silence. Again, Emma sighed to herself. She set Regina in a chair and gathered herself some pancake batter. She’d learned sometime ago she learned that it was pointless to ask Regina what she wanted. She didn’t eat much these days and when she did she was either indifferent or complained of a different hunger—one that Emma assumed was for a soul. Emma was mixing the batter when Regina spoke. “What was that?” Regina was quiet again, leaving Emma frustrated that she had missed the opening.

“I don’t remember.” She repeated at last. “Not exactly. My soul…” she paused. “It’s gone.” 

Emma nodded, “yeah, a wraith took it.” She searched the other woman’s face for a reaction. Impassive and with a hint of melancholy, as always. “Do you know anything about them?”

“I know that there’s nothing we can do…” Her eyes left the ground and her tone was disturbingly level. “Once a soul is gone, it’s gone.” 

“Can’t we go chase the wraith and slay it or something?”

“It’s not a dragon, Emma.” Regina responds. Even though it was absent, Emma can practically hear that impatient, sassy overtone her voice usually took on when stating things that she thought were obvious. Oddly enough, as vexing as that attitude was, she wishes it was truly there.

“We’ll we can find another way.” She knew she wasn’t convincing anyone, save for maybe Mary. Even Henry looked crestfallen. “We will.” 

Regina was staring at Henry again. That time she shook her head and pressed her hands to it. She must have decided that the conversation was as good as over because she was burying her face in her arms again. Clearly Emma couldn’t rely on her to go wraith hunting. She couldn’t imagine the woman doing anything but staring blankly at it, or perhaps, longingly. 

She set a pancake before Regina, hoping that the woman would take it, but she wouldn’t even lift her head. “Come on Regina, just because you don’t have your soul, doesn’t mean you can skip breakfast.” She gave the woman a little nudge. Sometimes she likes to pretend that caring for Regina has put them on a friendlier level. She supposed that it made it easier to at least think that there would be any payoff. Really, she was assuming that this would turn out in just the same way rescuing Regina from the fire had. She watched Henry eat his pancake as she ate her own. And when she finished her own pancake she poured a generous amount of syrup on to Regina’s. She waited for the woman to lift her head again. “Here.” She offered when the woman finally did. Just as the routine went, Emma eventually brought the fork to Regina’s mouth. If only she could get Regina to a point where she could at least run through the basics in life.   
The most that Regina seemed to be willing to do was slouch back to her bed and stare at the ceiling, sparing Emma only a forlorn glance. This was one such day; Emma watched her slump her way over and practically let herself drop onto the mattress. She didn’t adjust her position, merely remained in the haphazard way she had landed. Emma found herself sympathetic towards her former foe all over again. Without much thought, she helped Regina into a position that looked, at least from where she stood, to be a more comfortable one. She thought of tucking the woman in, but didn’t exactly feel like moving her again so soon. “Henry, why don’t you come read part of your book to your mom?”

“She doesn’t like the book.” Henry reminded. 

“I’m sure you’ve got more books lying around, kid.”

He nodded, made his way to his room, and returned with a handful of comic books that Emma couldn’t see Regina having any interest in. But what mattered was that Henry was the one reading. Maybe she couldn’t do Regina any good, but she at least sat up and paid attention when Henry was talking. Even if it was for the wrong reasons.   
Even if it did lead to her mutter again, about something so brilliantly bright. 

Emma watched them from across the room. Henry seemed to have very minimal interest in the woman he was reading to, only seeming to care to the extent that it satisfied his other mom. She wished that she could spark a genuine care in him. Mary didn’t seem to believe it nor did David, but Emma still insisted that caring for Regina now would change a lot of things. There was something in her eyes. Something buried far beneath the dimness. Maybe it wasn’t a soul, but it was something, a tiny fragment of something…  
Emma just hoped that it was a powerful something.

Regina reached out and touched Henry’s cheek, it was only an echo of what she had done in the past. A motion that looked like it was done entirely to try to force the feelings that used to come with it. But her dim expression didn’t waver, not even a little. 

She wondered if this is how it was going to be from now on; she having to do the simplest things for Regina and then watching Regina try and fail to work up the resolve to do them herself. She didn’t know how much longer she could stand to watch this ghost of a woman linger in the tiny loft.   
Hopefully there would be some change after a visit to Blue.

Thinking little of what she was about to do, Emma dropped onto the bed and took Regina’s hand. Giving it a squeeze, she made another promise that she wasn’t sure she could keep. “I’m going to get it back. I’m the savoir. Saviors bring people happy endings, right? Even people like you…” She wished she could rephrase that last bit. 

“People have souls, I don’t.” Regina remarked. “Am I still a person?”


	5. The Clydesdale Horse

The question echoed in Emma’s mind, haunting it and toying with it.  “Am I still a person.” Emma would fiercely say yes. But Regina and every source she’d found online was saying otherwise. She huffed to herself, why was she relying on a computer to answer a question about humanity. She was supposed to be using it to figure out how to re-attain a soul and nothing else. All she seemed to be finding was Lord Of The Rings fanart and a couple of dungeons and dragons campaigns. It was frustrating to put it mildly. She, without question, was going to have to go to Mother Superior and get another lecture on why it was a bad idea to help the Evil Queen.

 

For the first time since Emma found her, Regina had taken the initiative to get out of bed herself, but she didn’t get much further than that. She was sitting maybe two feet away from the bed, staring. It was as though all of her energy had been exerted into standing up and moving those two feet. Emma forced her to her feet. It was very clear that she wasn’t going to be of any help; the former mayor was practically dead weight propped up against her. With Henry safely in school, Emma decided that it was time to see Mother Superior.

 

It was easier to just carry her, so Emma did until they reached her bug. As soon as she set Regina in her car, she was already slumped over with her cheek against the back of the driver’s car seat and her right arm dangling limply in front of her. That was the first time Emma saw the tattoo. She wondered if the woman had always had it and when she’d gotten it. On her wrist was a small horse with a crown atop its head.

 

“What’s that?” Emma asks, once she is behind the wheel, she quickly points to the tattoo. It is the one thing she could think of as far as making conversation went.

 

Regina peered down at her wrist. “A tattoo.”

 

Emma rolls her eyes, apparently Regina was still capable of getting her to do that. “I know that, but what does it mean?”

 

Regina rubs at it for a moment and just as monotonously as prior, she replies, “Daniel.”

 

Emma’s brows scrunch. “It means Daniel…” after she stated it she put the pieces together. “Oh, it represents someone—Daniel doesn’t it?”

 

Regina nodded.

“Who is Daniel?”

 

Emma didn’t think that her expression could grow any gloomier. She realized that she had just pried too deep. Just like that, she remembered that the woman still probably hated her. What business did she have asking…

She pulled up to the Convent of the Sisters of Saint Meissa, the last place she ever thought she’d make a destination of. She opened the door for Regina. “Seriously, I’m not going to carry you all the way up there.”

 

Regina considered her predicament, giving no indication that she was going to move. “Come on, don’t you think it will be embarrassing…” she trailed off. She couldn’t imagine that the former mayor really cared in present. “Look, you need to help me help you, I can’t just do everything.”

 

Just when she was about to give in, Regina put a leg out of the car. It was a game of patience at that point; the woman was aggravatingly slow and Emma couldn’t tell it was in spite or because she truly lacked the motivation. Knowing the her, it was a combination of both.  At least she was moving on her own this time.

Emma whose patience had reached its end, walked ahead of Regina, in hopes of motivating her to speed up. But she did not, the savior found herself waiting on the convent doorstep for a good two or three minutes before the other made it up the first step.  Emma knocked on the door, maybe by the time someone answered, Regina would make it to the top of the staircase.

 

Regina situated herself, leaning against the brick column that supported the porch’s roof. Only moments later, Mother Superior beckoned them in—Emma anyhow, she already looked less than trilled to see the former queen at her door.

 

“How can I help you, Emma.”  And there was that smile, the one Emma always had mixed feelings about. The one that was somehow smug and sweet at the same time.

 

“I was actually hoping you could…” She trailed off, her best bet was to not mention Regina at all. “I was hoping that you could tell me a bit about wraiths. How to capture them, maybe. Or take them down.”

 

Mother Superior cocked her head and furrowed her brows. “Now why would you want to do such a thing?”

 

“I need to get a soul back.”

 

And so Mother Superior’s eyes fell onto Regina who sat in the arm chair at the far end of the room with one leg crossed over the other. She seemed to be gazing out the window, but Emma couldn’t imagine that she was viewing anything in particular. The nun’s expression hardened. “For her?”

 

She should have left Regina at home. “Just for fun, actually.” The nun wasn’t laughing. “Look, we can’t just leave her like this.”

 

“We can and it is better for the town if we do.” She began to pace about as if her own words discomforted her.

 

“I saved you and everyone else here, the least you can do is tell me how to hunt a wraith.”

 

“You don’t.” Mother Superior stated flatly. “Once a wraith takes a soul it has the soul. For a wraith a soul is food. It is consumed like food and is good like food.”

 

Emma cast another sympathetic glance at the woman who showed so very little interest in matters that concerned her so heavily. “So it really is hopeless.” Mary Margret would love to hear that one. “There’s no way to get her soul back.”

 

Mother Superior halted her pacing and smoothed the cuff of her sleeve. “Do you know what a soul is, Emma?”

 

“Yeah, it’s…” She fought for the right descriptors.

 

“A soul, Emma, is what makes someone human.”

 

She thought back again, to Regina’s question, now finding her deeply unsettled by the answer. No, she decided to herself, Regina was still human. Somehow, she was.

 

“A soul is the essence of a person, their memories, their emotions, their passion, their love. All of the things that make a person who they are.”  She looked at Emma. “As long as at least one of those is still in tact, a soul can never truly be taken from a person. Not in full and not by a wraith.”

 

Emma wasn’t quite ready to ask what could take a soul, lest she find out or get into a religious spiel with the nun.

 

“Which is exactly why _she’s_ a lost cause. She scarcely had a soul to begin with.”  Mother Superior couldn’t mask her sneer fast enough for Emma not to catch it. “She has her memories, but she lacks passion and emotion. And love? That’s something the Evil Queen isn’t capable of.”

 

Emma stole a peep at Regina again. The sun fell warmly upon her face, but her expression was so cold. Her eyes trailed down to the woman’s arm. At the elegant crowned clydesdale horse that gallops across her wrist. “But Regina might be.”


	6. The Brightest One

Emma decided to take Regina for a walk. She thought that some fresh air might be good for her. After getting her to step out of the car and walk up to Mother Superior’s residency, she began mustering up the strength to keep doing it. At first Regina would only walk from one room to another, at most she’d cross the house if she had to. Emma, ever a fan of tough love, was hoping to push her a little harder. The former mayor still refused to dress herself; “what’s the point?” And when Emma did so she kept whatever the sheriff tossed on her under the guise that it didn’t really matter what she wore anymore. As a treat Emma decided not to take the easy sweatpants route and dressed the woman in one of her more elaborate and expensive power suits. If she was going to parade her around the town against her will, she may as well let her keep her dignity.

 

“I was wondering if you wanted to walk Henry to school with me.”

 

Regina turned her head from the window to face Emma. Another round of silence and Emma knew that the decision was hers. She ran a comb through the former mayor’s hair. “We’ll leave when Henry gets down here. You should eat something, Mary just went shopping.”

 

**.oOo.**

 

Her stroll to the table was a ghost of an emotion, done only to appease Emma. She had learned that if she wanted to be left alone then it was best to just get things over with. It didn’t really matter, she just wanted some quiet. She took the first cereal box her hand landed on and poured herself a bowl. Distantly, from a life away, she remembered that she used to hate the taste of that one. But brining the spoon to her mouth, she is wholly indifferent. Everything tastes the same to her anyways. She ate only enough to dull the ache in her stomach and then pushed the bowl away and rested her cheek on her hand until Henry dashed down the stairs.

 

“Hey kid, your other mom is walking you to school with us today.” Emma informed him.

 

Regina disagreed vastly with the phrasing. She wouldn’t be walking, more or less trailing behind as they carried on happy conversations she couldn’t muster up any interest in. On a normal day Henry passionately sharing his fan-theories on the X-Men would have made her smile despite having only a vague clue as to what he was talking about. She tried to smile as she sulked along, she tried to muster up that warm feeling. But it refused to come and it only sunk her deeper down. It only fueled her longing.

 

Her soul.

She pined for it.

She didn’t know how much longer she could do without.

 

She began to think of herself as less of a human and more of a corpse. She was dragging herself through the day to day things like one. An animated one. She didn’t realize that she was standing in the elementary school parking lot. She missed it when Emma waved Henry off with a, “good luck, kid, have fun.”

 

“You ready, Regina.”

 

She looked up from the ground to see Henry running up the stairs and into the school building, Mary-Margaret greeting him gleefully. She felt awful, she hadn’t even wished him a good day at school.

Awful.

It was the first thing she truly felt—or at least felt small pangs of—in a long time.

Why did it have to be something unsavory?

 

The guilt gave way to a blunter version of sadness. She counted herself thankful that she couldn’t seem to feel it in full. All the same she began to wonder if there was really a difference between the woman she was with her soul and the woman she had become. Sadness, guilt, and anger was all she ever felt prior. Sadness, guilt, and anger was all she felt now. She mulled over whether she had a soul to begin with, perhaps the wraith was a figment of her imagination, but that wouldn’t account for Emma saying that her soul had been reaped.

 

Suddenly she found herself wanting to feel the anguish in full. It was better than feeling nothing at all. If only she’d known that when she wished to distance herself from her emotions. Life must spite her if the only wishes of hers that it ever granted were the ones that would surly destroy her.

 

Walking through the town offers her nothing but longing and temptation. She can see them. Sense them. The brilliant white-gold radiant auras of the souls around her. The souls that she couldn’t have. Some weren’t as bright as the rest, Leroy’s was pretty dour actually. But it was a soul. Choosiness isn’t a luxury afforded to the desperate.  

 

Emma muttered something and pointed to the Storybrook library. Regina watched her slip into it and was only faintly curious as to dialogue what she had missed. She didn’t care to chase her down though, so she would make her own way home. It took her a few moments but she set off in the direction of her mansion. It was an easy straight shot, all she had to do was force her legs to keep moving.

 

Soon she found herself wandering across the street, mostly tugged by the abundance of souls clustered on the other side of the street. She was drawn to it like some moth to a porch light. She didn’t have the willpower to stop herself from acting upon that pull.

The motion was absent, her hand reached out. Paige had a particularly alluring soul. An untainted one. Regina had to make it hers. One way or another she just had too…

 

Emma’s hand curled around her shoulder. “Regina! I left for maybe three minutes! If I knew that you were going to take off like this then I would have held off on my bathroom break.”

 

“Let go.” Regina mumbled. Paige was walking away. “Let go.” She repeated a little louder. Paige was nearing the street corner. She tried to shrug Emma off. “Let go of me.” She repeated. Paige was rounding the corner, she was going to lose her. She was going to lose that vivid, pure soul. “You have to let go of me.” She sounded so desperate. So pathetic.

 

“Regina, what’s going on with you?” The confusion was plain on Emma’s face. Up until now, she had been so indifferent, no wonder the savior was befuddled by her frantic pleas.

 

“I need to go get it, Emma.” Regina whispered. “I need to…” But she knew that her moment had passed. It doesn’t sit well with her, how strongly she craved that little girl’s soul. She dropped to her knees and began to sob.

 

**.oOo.**

 

Seeing Regina cry had been a relief. A very strange sort of relief. Emma wished that it had been any other emotion. But emotion had still been present. Over what, Emma didn’t know, but for a fleeting moment, Regina felt again.

 

Emma was determined to spark kinder feelings in the woman. That was how she came to sit with Regina in front of the television with an absurdly large bowl of popcorn and a deck of uno cards. Unfortunately, Regina’s capacity to feel seemed to have been spent for the day. She was back to staring unfeelingly as Emma dropped another draw four on her. If that couldn’t spark a rage then she didn’t know of anything that could. “New color is red.” She watched Regina set down a red two. She couldn’t help but zero in on that clydsdale horse. If Regina noticed her lapse in focus and her staring, she didn’t say anything. She simply waited for Emma to say uno and set her last card down. She can’t help but stare again as she takes the remaining cards from Regina’s hands. She thinks that her next thought could count as intrusive; a part of her wonders if it is possible for her to earn a tattoo next to that one. She wonders if it would be possible for her former rival to love her. She wonders why she is pondering it at all.

 

That time it seemed as though Regina did catch on to her staring. Regina took to rubbing the ink with her thumb.

Emma thinks that she can detect a faint trace of something in Regina’s soft brown eyes. It might be sorrow or longing but it could also be affection.

 

So, without giving herself time to think about what she was doing, she took Regina’s hand.


	7. A Weightless Distance

The presence of the Charmings wasn’t doing Regina any good, even if Mary was doing her best to be friendly and understanding. “Baby steps.” Emma whispered to her as she tugged her jacket on. “Just let me help her get her soul back and then we’ll work on her relationship with the rest of the town.” It was still Mary’s home though so Regina would have to leave if she wanted distance. That’s how Emma found herself at the park with the former queen. She supposed that they could have gone to Regina’s house, but Emma was tired of being cooped up inside and the park kept Henry occupied.

 

Regina was as quiet as ever, only speaking if someone spoke to her first, even then sometimes it took multiple repetitions for her to finally find the desire to answer. Emma might have said that it was the pestering that coaxed an answer but the other woman didn’t really seem all that bothered. For a good while she simply watched Henry sit on the swing and occasionally converse with a child Emma didn’t recognize. Summer was quickly turning to fall and the breeze that fluttered the former mayor’s hair was rather brisk.

 

“It’s my favorite season.” Regina whispered.

 

As per usual Emma was unprepared for her speaking so she didn’t catch the words. “One more time.”

 

“Autumn. It’s my favorite season.” She was looking down, fidgeting with the button on her jacket.

 

“I’m more of a spring and summer person.” Emma confessed.

 

“But it’s not the same. The colors used to be so bright…”

 

“They still are.” Emma smiled warmly.

 

“Not to me.” She steals a peek at Henry. “Can we go inside?”

 

It was the first thing she had actually requested in a long time, so Emma nodded. “Yeah, I guess we can.” Frankly, she was enjoying the last of the summer air, despite its chillier edge. “Henry, come on, we’re going back to Mary’s place.”

 

“Actually, I want to go to my mansion.”

 

Emma tilted her head. “Well…okay.”  She didn’t really care to go to Regina’s house, but she would rather keep the ball rolling. If Regina was finally willing to decide things for herself, then Emma was willing to comply. “What do you want to go home for anyways. It’s nice out here.”

 

Regina shrugged. “It feels the same out here as it feels inside.”

 

“Can’t I have ten more minutes?” Henry asked. “Just ten?”

 

“Your other mom wants to…”

 

Just as his face started to fall, Regina lifted a hand, “it doesn’t matter.”

 

“Does that mean yes!?” He asked hopefully. “I can have ten more minutes.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Are you sure Regina?” Emma asked.

 

“I said that it doesn’t matter. I’ll get home when I get home.”

 

It was just one more statement that chilled Emma. This was the woman who had constantly told her to do her job. The woman who always had somewhere to be at a certain time.  “If you’re sure.”

 

**.oOo.**

 

There was a whole list of things that Regina didn’t want to talk about and Emma seemed to have a talent for discovering and discussing them all. She had a knack for creating new subjects as well. Regina supposed that she didn’t feel any sort of way about Emma occasionally taking her hand. But she knew that she should. She knew that if the wraith hadn’t come around she would probably have far more than just a few qualms about it. She didn’t like being treated as though she needed her hand held. But mostly it was that it was Emma doing the hand holding. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to be bothered by it, the way she thought she ought to be.

 

Such was how they’d gotten home, Emma took her hand, practically leading her to her own house. She’d lost her soul not her memory. She tried to find it in herself to be vexed by it, still the emotion wouldn’t come. It seemed to drift on the fringes of her consciousness, just out of reach. If she unfurled the fingers of her mind as far as they could span, she would only just brush them over those twinges of annoyance.

 

For the first time she longed to feel mildly irritated. At least it would be something. Emma allowed her the pleasure of reaching into her purse, drawing out her keys, and unlocking the door herself. The mansion seemed vast these days, somehow emptier than usual. She found the thermostat and turned the heat up some. She began to wonder if the house was really chilly at all or if it was just another side effect of her missing soul.

 

“Oh, don’t tell me you turned the heat down.” Emma practically whined. It was the most reassuring thing, that she’d said yet.

 

“When are we going back to Snow’s loft?” Henry asked.

 

“When your mom feels like it, I guess.” Emma replied.

 

Right now Regina didn’t feel like it, she didn’t feel like doing anything.

She certainly didn’t feel up for another discussion with Emma, about her past. She thought that she should have seen it coming though. Her staring hadn’t gone unnoticed. She almost wanted to cover the tattoo entirely.  But if she did then it would be lost to her eyes as well.  She assumed that Emma wouldn’t bring it up again, but she really was as idiotic as Regina assumed.

 

Regina tucked Henry in before she began her interrogation, leaving the former Queen to assume that this was a subject that never truly left the sheriff’s mind at all. Henry still seemed conflicted over his adoptive mother being the one to pull the blankets over his shoulders. And her lack of enthusiasm probably hadn’t helped helped her case. Emma had stood in the doorway, likely thinking over how to phrase her questions. Or maybe she just went in with no prepared dialog at all…it sure seemed that way.

 

Regina sat before an empty fireplace—one that hadn’t any use since last winter—reading a book that no longer struck her fancy. It was actually more of a skimming…less than that. She read over the same sentence time and time again with just as little investment as the time before, never truly reading it at all.

 

“What was he like?”

 

She didn’t bother to mark her place before putting the book down. “What was who like?”

 

“Daniel.”

 

She went rigid, wholly on instinct.

 

“Well?”

 

“He was a good man.”

 

“Was?”

 

Regina’s grip tightened on the arm rests. “He died because of your mother. All she had to do was keep quiet…” She was scared more than ever, for the state of herself. Where was it? Where was the rage that usually came with those words? Where was the venom?  She found herself terribly chilled once more.

 

“I’m sure she didn’t mean it.”

 

“No, of course not.” The words were as habitual as the rest. “Snow White, never means anything bad she causes.” She speaks them without any passion, more or less because she feels like she has to.

 

“I’m sure _that’s_ not true.” Emma chuckled. “Everyone has done something bad knowing it was bad.”

 

“Is asking me about Daniel one of those things?”

 

“It doesn’t have to be.” Emma tried. “Did you ever talk to anyone about him? About what happened.”

 

Regina thought for a moment. Gold couldn’t possibly count. “No.”

 

“Then why not give it a try?”

 

It was on the tip of her tongue to admit that it was simply a dangerous lake to swim in. In the same heartbeat, she pondered it to herself, deciding that now would be a better time than any to have such a conversation. With her emotions so subdued, she could safely tread those turbulent waters. “I watched him die. He died in my arms and I couldn’t do anything.” She was soundly nonchalant.  “I tried true love’s kiss—it works for everyone but me. I guess that true love’s kiss only works if you still have a heart.”

 

“You do have a heart, Regina.”

 

She shook her head. “But Daniel didn’t.” The vast, hollowness within her seemed to expand and she began to wonder if she was still in a dangerous place after all. It would seem that she was still allowed to feel a very generous amount of mourning. “She ripped it out of him.”

 

“My mom?” Emma’s eyes seemed to bug out.

 

“ _My_ mother.”

 

She saw Emma swallow. She reached out, once again her hand was on Regina’s. She could see the blonde struggling for words. Naturally she landed on a very simple, “I’m sorry.” Regina wasn’t sure exactly what it was in regards to; hearing of the situation or for brining it up at all. She was willing to bet on the first of the two because she wasn’t letting the subject drop.

Not entirely.

 

And Regina couldn’t figure out why. Why she kept pushing when she saw that it put Regina in such disarray. In the same sweep, it rendered that, that might have been exactly why she kept going. She was looking for a reaction. Emma always had gotten a kick out of provoking her.

But this time her question was innocent. “What was you’re favorite thing about him?”

 

It took Regina a moment to answer; she didn’t think that it was any one thing but rather a series of many things—smaller and greater. Eventually she settled on the most prevalent, “he cared.”

 

Emma tilted her head.

 

“About me.” She elaborated. “He listened to what _I_ wanted and did what _I_ liked doing. Usually I was doing things that other people enjoyed. He was the only person who took what I wanted into consideration.” She paused. “He liked the same things that I did. Horseback riding—that’s how we met, he was my stable boy—walking in the woods, seeing who could climb to the tops of trees first, swimming in ponds that weren’t exactly enchanted…”

 

“You never struck me as an outdoorsy person, madame mayor.”

 

“When I was younger…” She stared at her palms, wondering where her sense of adventure had gone. Had it died with him? Would she have had any of that sense still, had she not lost her soul? “I liked his smile too.” It brought a foreign warmness to her core, thinking about it. “He had a reckless streak and a bit of a hero complex. He was always so bold, he reminded me that I was too.”

 

It was rather refreshing to think about him again and in a way that didn’t find a focal point around his death. She could very vividly remember the feeling of his hand on her cheek and his lips brushing against hers. His palms had been rough and calloused, but he was gentle with her.

 

Something welled up within her, it wasn’t like that ominous, empty churning. It was much more weightless. Kindly weightless.

So she kept talking.

 

**.oOo.**

 

“He was also dreadfully annoying, Swan. He knew exactly how to bother me.” Regina noted but not without a hint of fondness. It seemed to cheer her some, to talk about Daniel.

 

“Like what did he do?” Emma asked.

 

“Sometimes he would howl like a wolf at the most inappropriate times. He liked to scare my neighbor’s sheep. Father got a kick out of that one. But he would also do it when we were at Firefly Hill. Not only did it ruin the mood but it scared the fire flies off too.”

 

Emma could tell that it was a treasured memory. She could see it in the woman’s eyes. Eyes that, only moments ago, had been so startlingly vacant. She was scared that if she let the conversation end, that the glimmer would leave them again. “He sounds like a fun person.”

 

Regina nodded, “he was.” For a second, one terrifying second she was quiet and Emma thought that the conversation was going to drop. “One time he convinced me to break into a pumpkin farm and steal some of them—he told me that if the boy tattled no one would believe him anyways because he liked to cry wolf.”

 

“Did they believe him.”

 

Regina nodded. “He cried wolf, not pumpkin. My mother wasn’t happy with the fines.”

 

Emma tried to picture the mayor, her grumpy, uptight Regina eloping through a pumpkin patch, trying to find the best one to swipe.

 

“You would have liked him.” She her look was faraway now. Faraway but almost dreamy. She wondered if she should keep the conversation going a bit longer. But Regina seemed to be comfy in her thoughts for a change, it might be best to let her do things on her own. Anyways, she need to make sure the woman still had plenty to discuss should her mood fall again.

 

Anyhow, Emma was lost in her own thoughts now. Thoughts that surprised her. Thoughts that maybe shouldn’t have, but still did. She couldn’t help but dwell on the image of a happier Regina. A daring risk-taking Regina. The kind of Regina she would have gotten along with very well. The kind of Regina who would have stole a yellow bug with her.

Emma couldn’t quite grasp why—or perhaps didn’t want to. But she couldn’t help but create a scenario in her head, where it was she who’d snuck out with Regina to cause a little mischief in the countryside.  


	8. The Apparents

Regina seemed more vibrant the next morning. Perhaps joyful wasn’t the right word, but there was still some life in her eyes. Just a tiny glimmer of something that lit her otherwise rather expressionless face up. She was fixing herself something to eat. Emma was thrilled to be saved the trouble of having to do so. She hoped that Regina would continue to do the little things herself. It wasn’t much, but it was progress.

 

She wondered if she should discuss the state of Regina with Mary. It seemed like something she ought to know, but at the same time it was very much none of her business and she couldn’t see Regina taking well to her disclosing such. Despite it all, the woman seemed to be on good terms with her, and Emma didn’t want to lose that. All the same, she wanted other people to talk to the former queen.  She rubbed her chin; what a conundrum she had.

 

Regina was still very quiet in her somber way. She still seemed to stare off out the window, but this time Emma thought that she might have been staring at something rather than just going blank. If talking about love was enough to rekindle at least a tiny portion of her soul, she wondered what actually loving her would do.

Her theory would be much easier to test if Henry wasn’t in school. Of course, an afterschool movie with some snacks could work. She just feared that the spark would fade before Henry got home.  She supposed that it would be best to keep Regina occupied.

 

“Does it taste good?” She motions to Regina’s cup of coffee. The one that the former mayor seemed to be staring into. She took hold of Regina’s hand again, at first it was meant only as a comforting gesture, now it was becoming something of a habit. So much so, that Regina didn’t seem bothered, not that she had been in the first place.

 

“It doesn’t taste bad.” She half shrugged.

 

Again Emma finds herself missing those fiery quips, the Regina who would snap back with some sarcastic remark.

 

“I was hoping that, after I pick Henry up, we can all watch a movie. Henry’s pick of course.”

 

“If that’s what you want to do, Swan.”

 

“Is there a movie that you’d like to see?”

 

She looked at Emma as though the question was completely ridiculous, it was as close as she was going to get to some sass. Granted, Regina never did seem like a movie type of person. Much less someone who would enjoy a movie when she barely managed to enjoy conversation. Absently, she finds herself petting the top of Regina’s hand with her thumb. She didn’t take notice of it until she followed Regina’s gaze and put a pause to her motion. She was making things weird. She had to find herself a distraction of some sort and looking at the clock seemed like a good one. Only a good fifteen or so minutes before she had to fetch Henry. “You want to come get Henry with me?”

 

“Not particularly.”

 

Emma crinkled her brows. She never thought that Regina actively would pass on an opportunity to spend more time with him. All the same she was curious as to how the woman would conduct herself if left to her own vices. “Are you sure.”

 

She wouldn’t say it again.

 

“Alright.” Emma mumbled. “Well I guess I’ll be right back then. We’ll pick up a movie and some snacks along the way. I _really_ do want you to enjoy this with us.” Again she wonders why she thinks so. Regina had only ever given her a hard time. Yet, she enjoyed being in her company, however dreary it was. At her best, the former mayor had definitely kept Emma on her toes. She had given her something to strive for, something to keep her going. Perhaps that was the allure of Regina. Perhaps that’s why she felt obligated to try to piece the woman’s soul back together.

Somehow, she thought it ran deeper than that.

Somehow, it scared her.

It scared her, she realized, because she knew why it ran deeper than that. She just couldn’t understand why or how it came to run deeper than a sense of debt.

 

**.oOo.**

 

It crossed her mind only briefly to tell Emma to wait, but the park had been bad enough. It teemed with children so full of energy and life. And that was just a handful of them. She couldn’t fathom being at a school; though not as overflowing with excitement as they would be at a park, the sheer number of children attending school would be hard to withstand. No, there were too many souls…too many untainted, opalescent white souls.

She couldn’t imagine herself stealing one.

But she couldn’t imagine herself being able to resist either.

 

Even if nothing came of her attempt…

 

The more she thought about it, the more fatigued her mind felt, until it started to numb itself again. She was losing that small tinge of something that Emma had awoken the night before. She was losing it and she couldn’t stand it. She needed to keep that thing. She had to think of something else. Something less despairing.

 

Evidently her mind wandered to other places she thought that it ought not to. In Emma’s absence, many things became apparent. The first of which was that the mansion was twice as dismal in her absence. She felt much colder within. Much lonelier. Much emptier.

 

And so the second thing became apparent. She was dependent again. Just as she had been in her mother’s company. Dependent and unwilling—unable, maybe—to do things on her own. Just as before, she needed someone else and she couldn’t stand it. But she couldn’t bring herself to do anything about it. She was relying on Emma as she had relied on her father. On her childhood ‘friend’, Claire. On Daniel. On everyone but herself.

She thought of Daniel again; his reckless streak, his boldness, his sense of adventure, his brazen hero complex, the amount of care he put into her—even if it was undeserved, and that ability to creep under her skin at times. She missed him so terribly. She didn’t think that she needed her soul to do that, even if it didn’t hurt in full.

Even if it didn’t hurt as much as it should.

 

By extinction she realized something. This something almost concerned her more than her dependency.  Without the savior present she came to realize that Emma reminded her of Daniel.


	9. The Candle

She hadn’t moved since Emma left and she could see it on Emma’s face that, that was means for concern. She might have hunched over some or let her hair fall forlornly into her face because Emma looked as though she’d done something wrong by leaving her alone. She didn’t miss the way she seemed to swallow a lump in her throat. “Uh…Henry’s here. You okay?”

 

“I’m the same as before, I suppose.” Regina replied.  She fidgets with the nearest napkin, bunching it up and unbunching it if for no other reason than to give herself something to take her mind away from things.

 

“Hi, mom.” Henry greets quietly. She still didn’t think he was used to calling her mom, she didn’t think that he ever would get used to it.

 

Regina tried to smile, she couldn’t tell if it worked or not. Even if it had, it felt so forced and out of place, as though it weren’t meant to be there at all. She wants to feel happy, and maybe she did, just a little, but not nearly as happy as she should be. She decided to try something different, something she hadn’t done in a good long while. She wrapped her arms around Henry and looked up at Emma, though she couldn’t say why she thought to look at her. For approval? For encouragement? Certainly not permission. Emma was smiling though, which gave a little twinge of what could have been elation of some kind. Regina wasn’t quite sure, but she was glad to have felt it. It took a moment to register that she was still hugging Henry very close and another moment too long for it to register that he wasn’t pulling away.

That time she believes that her smile was genuine. She tries to cling to the pleasant fluttering in her belly.

 

“What movie are we watching?” Regina asked, releasing Henry.

 

“X-Men!” Henry replied enthusiastically.

 

Regina tried to recall his favorite titles. “The Dark World?”

 

“That’s Thor, mom, but good try.” Henry replied. That time he it sounded more natural. Her smile held that much longer. “The Wolverine.”

 

“Have we seen that one?”

“It just came out.” Emma puts in.

 

“It sounds familiar.” Regina notes.

 

“I feel like all superhero movies are the same for you, Regina.”

 

To an extent she had to admit that they were, but she had been trying to keep up for the sake of engaging Henry. She was more fond of his Star Wars love. It was far past his bedtime when Emma actually decided to pop the movie in, but she wasn’t about to ruin Henry’s mood. Frankly she didn’t know how he was still awake. Regina herself was still nearly completely devoid of energy. After a certain point she began watching Emma and Henry more than the actual movie. Henry still stuck closer to Emma, leaning against her and directing his comments about the movie to her. She supposed that she didn’t feel so lonely that time; half because she simply couldn’t and half because she sensed that if she spoke up they would let her into the conversation. She simply didn’t have it in her to reach out. Even so, she was content to just watch them enjoy themselves, even if she couldn’t do the same.

 

“Popcorn?” Emma offers.

 

Regina waved a hand, “no thank you.”

 

“You sure?” Emma asked.

 

“It always gets stuck in my teeth.” Regina replied.

 

“More for us, I guess, right kid?”

 

Henry snatched the bowl. “Right!”

 

**.oOo.**

 

The movie was nearing its end, Emma was surprised that Henry was still awake. Evidently the only reason she agreed to let him stay up so late was because she thought that he’d doze off halfway through the movie. As it were that wasn’t what happened. On the other hand, Emma thought that she’d have Regina’s company for the duration of the movie even if it was quiet company. That also wasn’t so, Regina had dozed off a few minutes ago.

 

“Hey kid,” Emma spoke softly. “Can you get me a glass of water? I would do it myself but…” she motioned to Regina who was leaning against her, head resting on her shoulder. She didn’t have the heart to disturb her.

 

Henry paused the movie. “Yeah, big glass or small one?”

 

“Whatever you grab first.”

She found it hard to fathom that this was the same Regina Mills who tried to evict her from the town. The same Regina Mills who threatened to destroy her if it was the last thing she did. That Regina seemed so intimidating, so unkind, so hateful. This Regina…Emma found that she was actually pleasant to be around despite it all. She looked serene in sleep and Emma wished that sense of peace would carry over into her wakeful hours.

At the same time, she didn’t really know what to do; should she carry the woman to bed and tuck her in? Should she just carry her to her bed? Or was it better to just leave her where she was? That of course would mean falling asleep with the former mayor in such close proximity.

 

Henry returned with her glass of water and a blanket and un-paused the movie only to pause it again. He draped the blanket over Regina. Emma snickered, “I’ll have to let her know that you helped tuck her in.”

 

With a thumbs up, the movie was back in full swing. Emma yawned, she had to admit that her eyelids were getting heavy, truly she didn’t know how Henry could stay up so late.

 

**.oOo.**

 

_The forest is vast and dark and blotted out by mists. That which wasn’t choked by fog was obscured by thick branches and thorny foliage. She is lost, terribly lost. Lost and oppressed by the shadows. It is so cold and so lonely. Everything is so dead and it smells of dank moss and decay. She is so afraid as she wanders about, all she has is a candle one teeny, teeny bead of flickering light. She is looking for something but she doesn’t know what. She can’t find it and she is running out of time to find it. The fog seems to curl and thicken around her ankles, toying with the bottom of her white organza nightgown. She hears a shrill howl from deep within the woodland. She recognizes the howl and some sort of primal fear bubbles up even though she knows that there is nothing left for it to take. But its presence alone is awful, depressing, and overbearing. She knows that she can’t let it catch her, it will take that tiny light. The only light she has. It is so very small but she treasures it like some precious thing. But that howl, it is so close and she can’t make it out in the shadows, not when it is a shadow itself. She clings to her candle and makes a dash for it. She won’t let it steal the light._

 

It had been so long since Regina dreamed. She wished it was a more pleasant one. She decides that, in comparison, it was better than the other one. The one she had a few days after losing her soul. The one, wherein, she didn’t even have the candle. It was just she and the dark as it usually was. She squinted against the sunlight spilling through the curtains. _Just what time was it?_ She didn’t remember falling asleep. _Was she on the couch?_ Slowly it started coming back to her, she had been watching X-Men with Henry and Emma. She must have drifted off…

 

She heard a soft and sleepy mumble. Across the room she spied Henry, sleeping with an empty bowl of popcorn still in his clutches. And Emma…Emma! She had fallen asleep on top of Emma. At least her condition took the edge off of the embarrassment. The savior was much comfier than Regina wanted to admit. At least she _was_ comfy. In her sleep she rolled over, bucking Regina onto the floor. She landed with a soft thud and a small cry of surprise. Emma bolted upright, “what’s going on!?”

 

“Nothing, Swan, go back to sleep.” Regina rubbed her throbbing elbow.

 

Now Emma was fully awake, “oh shit!” She exclaimed. “You alright Regina.”

 

“Henry.” She hissed half-heartedly.

 

Emma winced, “sorry.” And then added, “he’s asleep, he didn’t hear me.” She paused. “And you didn’t answer me.”

 

“I’m fine.” Regina muttered. She wasn’t used to the concern.

 

“You feel asleep on me.” Emma laughed, awkwardly.

 

“Yes, I did.” She said dryly. On a normal day she might have been flustered.

 

“Man, I wish I thought of telling Henry to take a picture, ya know, for blackmailing purposes.” This time the laugh was rather bold.

 

Again, Regina found herself dwelling on Daniel. Emma shared his way of playing things off too. She hadn’t meant to do it, but she withdrew. It was easy to do, with the chilly emptiness waiting for her with such open and inviting arms.

She hated the look on Emma’s face when she went quiet and subdued once again.


	10. The Art Of Feeling

_The call is closer and it chills her to the bone. She is ankle deep in river water but she has to cross it, the wraith will catch her otherwise. That water is dark and thrashing, merciless. The deeper she goes the more silted it becomes until she feels as though it is more clay than river. It is so hard to move in sludge so dense and she feels trapped. The screech of the wraith has her fears coming to a head, she doesn’t think that she is going to make it. It had been a dreadful mistake to try the river, not that she could have anticipated that it would thicken into mud. She wonders if she has wandered into quicksand. She gets her answer as it pull her under into a deeper dark, a suffocating dark. But she thinks, at least it is better than taking a chance with the wraith. But now she doesn’t know how she will ever find that thing, whatever it is, that she is looking for._

_She hears her name._

_It is called once and then another time._

_The voice is pleasant and it almost outweighs the cry of the wraith._

_Almost…_

 

Regina had begun to dream more than ever lately. She didn’t think it was possible for the soulless to dream. She wondered to herself if she had retained some visage of her soul after all. She dared to hope that she had. She found that, since watching the movie she was prone to boughs of emotion. They weren’t particularly positive emotions but she found that she felt them in full and for all of her displeasures she was brought some solace. It came in the form of a more pleasant feeling; reassurance, comfort. She thought that it was the first kind emotion she had felt in ages and she was thankful for it.

 

Granted she had stepped on more than a few toes that week. The first time she felt searing rage rip through her soul at full force was exhilarating. It was Mother Superior who had flared her temper. The woman had come to check on Emma. “I just want to make sure that the Queen hasn’t killed you, or worse.” The vexing fairy had said, never mind that Regina was still within ear shot. Such was always how it had been, whispers about her when people thought she wasn’t listening. Something about that day was different though, something somehow stung more. It might have been that she hadn’t done anything for so long and they still expected her to do something dreadful. That she was literally down a soul and they still saw her as the most horrific threat that the realms have seen. Or maybe it was that that she already had enough of her plate and she could use some sympathy for a change rather than a bubbling slew of resentment.

Or maybe it was that the fairy implied that she would hurt Emma. At her own thought she was conflicted all over again. Didn’t she want to hurt Emma? Wasn’t that what she was supposed to do? And yet, she wasn’t keen on doing so at all.

 

She had been so quiet and demure for such a long time that her sudden outburst had taken both Emma and Superior aback. She hollered something, something about, “how dare you come into my manor and imply that I’m doing wrong.” And, “she wouldn’t still be hear if I was skinning her alive.” She was proud to note that the image made Mother Superior squirm.

 

She had expected Emma to take her by the arm and scold her for being…for being how she usually was. But it almost seemed as if the blonde wanted to keep her fury going. Regina had wanted to keep her fury going, it was wonderful to feel something in full.  Eventually after a few calm comments from Emma and some more seething ones from Regina, the fairy apologized for her invasiveness and shooed herself away.

 

And thus Regina began a new reign of terror. One wherein she actively sought out things she knew would make her angry. It was a slow progression starting with something so petty and trivial it was almost embarrassing. She went to Granny’s and ordered her usual, this time adding a hint of cinnamon to her hot chocolate knowing very well she hated the flavor. Upon getting it she pitched a fit, calling Ruby incompetent among other things for mixing up her order.

She moved on to another easy target; Grumpy. It was easy to get into a spat with him, he himself was full of petty arguments. The one she chose was a low blow, teasing him for his inability to find love with Nova. The quarrel lasted for at least fifteen minutes before Emma showed up. She hadn’t meant to cause the savoir any strife, but she got some grief for, ‘not keeping her demon on a tight enough leash.’ Her brewed stronger and with it some strange sort of delight.

 

In that week she had become something of a junkie. The petty fights were no longer rousing her temper to the magnitude she required to feel reassured. So she stomped straight to Mary’s loft. She was going to have the fight of her life. Part of her, the darkest part of the Evil Queen, wanted it to be a physical altercation. Maybe it would escalate that far. If Mary said the wrong thing, she would gladly deliver the first punch, she may not be able to get the best of Emma in a hand to hand fight, but she could surly best Mary who was mostly fluff and sugar.

Her fight with Mary was a grand success. It started with the usual; reminding her that she had killed Daniel and ruined her life.  She hadn’t anticipated Mary snapping and declaring that it was her own fault for stupidly trying to hold such a difficult secret.

She came out of it with a bruised lip and a scrapped arm. Mary didn’t look so spiffy by the end either.

 

She knew that Mary would feel awful, but she didn’t think that she would care at all. In fact she was certain that her high would wear off soon and she’d be completely numb again as the soulless were supposed to be. But that night was a dreadful cocktail of emotions that Regina wasn’t ready for. Having been so cut off from all over her feelings for so long, they hit her intensely. Bombarding her until she was curled up on the floor, crying and thankful but unhappy all at once, that Emma wasn’t there yet.

 

It was regret and sorrow. No one was going to like her, she wasn’t a likable person, and she hadn’t made things any better for herself. She supposed that there was always a part of her that wanted to be better. A part of her that didn’t want to fight anyone. Perhaps that part was bleeding through.

 

By the time Emma got home she was retreating back into numbness again. As with any drug, the high never lasted. And she felt emptier than ever. She considered for the first time, in doing such awful things, that she might be losing the part of her soul she had just found again…or at the very least blackening it to the point where she might as well not have it. She decided that it must be the first of her theories, because she felt herself feeling so much colder than she had started out.

She didn’t hear the door open.

 

It took her a moment too long to realize that she was still curled up on the floor. For the first time in her life, she hoped that Emma hadn’t brought Henry along to visit.

 

Apparently it took Emma a few minutes too long to notice too. The first thing out of her mouth wasn’t an inquiry as to why Regina was on the floor, it was a simple, “why did you do it?” A question Regina didn’t need any elaboration for. She knew very well that Emma always stopped by Mary on her way home from the sheriff’s office.

 

“I just want to feel again.” Regina muttered, feeling a fresh round of unpleasant emotions. “And this is the only way that I can.”

 

“There are other emotions besides anger and sadness, you know.” Emma almost laughed. “You can pick any one of them.”

 

She must have looked so pitiful. With teary eyes and a cracking voice she replied, “that’s just it Emma.” She paused looking somewhat distant. “I can’t. I try to feel them but I can only seem to arouse anger. And it’s effective because my anger always comes with sadness too.” And then she confessed something that she didn’t quite mean to. “It makes me feel human. It reminds me that I might be able to feel other things.” She rubbed her hands over her face. She was truly at a loss. Before she had a rather clear path, a clear path for change. She would use Henry as a sort of guide, as a motivation to be better. But these days she had no idea how to help herself. So, for the first time she stated it bluntly, “help me, Emma.”

 

She heard Emma mutter a soft ‘oh, God’ before stooping down to scoop her into her arms and cradle her there. “I’m trying.” Emma replied. “I’m really trying.”

 

**.oOo.**

 

Emma felt her rage rise to a height that would probably scare even Regina. How could Gold put her though something so horrible? How could everyone else let him get away as they condemn Regina for lesser evils?

 

She was storming down the streets of Storybrooke with her hands balled into fists. She didn’t have a plan but she wanted to raise hell.

 

She was torn, knowing that she had just lectured Regina on not letting her fury get the best of her. Knowing that she should probably lead by example. But all the same, she can’t fathom letting Gold get away with yet another deeply dark deed.

She gritted her teeth as Gold’s shop came into view. She had one part of a plan in mind and that was to dramatically kick in the shop door. The night was cold, she got the sense that this fall was going to be a chilly one. The wind whipped at her hair with a temper to match her own.

She had her foot ready.

 

She didn’t realize that Regina had been following her until she felt the woman’s hand grasp her by the wrist. “Emma, don’t.”

 

Her voice was unusually soft and so was the look in her eyes.

 

“Don’t, what?” She didn’t mean to snap at her, but she supposed that it didn’t matter because Regina looked wholly unfazed.

 

“Don’t do whatever you’re about to do.”

 

Emma was just about asked her where she had any room to preach but decided instead to ask a simple, “why shouldn’t I?” Quickly she added, “he deserves it at least ten times over.”

 

Regina nodded in agreement. In understanding.  “I don’t want you to get hurt, you and Henry are the only people I have.” Her voice drops lower and she could detect a melancholy edge to it. “I don’t want someone else I care about to die because of me.”

 

Any rage Emma had died right then. “Oh, Regina.” She ran her fingers through her hairline. “You know Mary didn’t mean that, right?”

 

“But she’s right.” Regina mumbled. “Come home with me?” It rested somewhere between a request and a demand.

 

“But he…” Emma motioned to the door. She can’t really fathom why Regina cared or when she began to…

No that wasn’t entirely true. She imagined that it was in return for the care she’d been given. Apparently, the former mayor didn’t just believe in vengeance. Emma was beginning to gather that the woman operated on a you get what you give level. Her perception of certain things she’d been given were simply misplace and/or skewed. “He can’t get away with it.” She finished.

 

“But he will, he always does.” Regina argued rather flatly. “So don’t make it harder than it needs to be.”

 

Emma considered. With a sigh she decided that maybe she should at least wait until she had a plan. Her mind was made up for her when the ‘open’ sign suddenly turned to read ‘closed’. Gold stepped out of his shop, sparing her a simple sideways glance. “To what do I owe the pleasure, dearie.” And then to Regina, “how are you feeling.”

 

“I’m not.” Her hands went to her pockets.

 

Emma resented him for the snide remark, the one that should have provoked a reaction in Regina. The one that had no effect on her at all.

 

“Just the way you wanted it.” She added.

 

Emma found herself inching closer to Regina, for what reason she doesn’t really know. The need to protect, maybe. Or to give support. It was possible that _she_ was seeking protection.

 

“It’s getting cold out here.” Regina noted, her eyes are downcast.

 

“Yeah, you’re right.” Emma agreed. She spared Gold one last glare and turned to Regina. She longed to make things right for her, but she didn’t know how. She thought that she had come so close. And she still does. She could see the difference between the woman she’d first found in her cell and the woman standing next to her…

 

**.oOo.**

 

Regina had a lot to think about on the way home. She had lied to Gold, she did feel something. Soft, practically unreachable prickles of emotion. But they were there. Neither of them talked as they made their way down the road but Regina didn’t particularly need conversation. No one had ever fought someone on her behalf before. No one save for Daniel.

 

She tried so very hard to conjure feelings of gratitude and happiness and coax them into reaching distance but it doesn’t quite work as well as summoning despair. Fear and ambivalence are easy to come by though. They are present aplenty.

 

There are things that she was afraid to admit.

Things that she knew now. Things that she was afraid to vocalize because she couldn’t find the words.

Things she was afraid to vocalize because she didn’t know if they would amount to anything anyways.


	11. So Long

Regina had been awake for hours now, invasive sunlight poured over the bed, growing brighter and brighter as more hours came to pass. Emma hadn’t left her that night and had informed her that Henry was safely with Mary. Though Regina was reluctant to call being in close proximity to Mary, safe. She heard the phone ring, the caller ID read Margret-Blanchard. Regina went to Emma’s sleeping back and shook her awake, “it’s for you.”

 

Emma sat up and rubbed at groggy eyes. “You sure? This is your mansion?”

 

“It’s Mary.” Regina thrusted the phone at Emma.

 

“Yeah, I’ll be picking up Henry in a few.” Emma said into the phone. “No. Are you sure? No really, I can take him to school, you don’t have to.” She watched Emma hang up and sigh. “She’s kind of a pain. She means well and I apricate her but—”

 

“Your mother is infuriating, next.” Regina cut in.

 

“Wow.” Emma muttered. Regina couldn’t tell if she was amused or offended. It was probably a bit of both. “After what I did for you last night?” She wore a half smile.

 

“You mean, storming off to a fight you couldn’t win, and making me leave my house to drag you back?” Regina grumbled, she was feeling particularly grumpy. “Thank you, Mrs. Swan.”

 

Emma rubbed the back of her head, “any time madame mayor.”

 

Regina considered toning it down a bit, Emma truly had gone above and beyond for her. But in doing so she stirred up a new array of problems that the queen wasn’t equipped nor ready for. It was why she has been staring off lately. She didn’t understand.

 

“Do you want to come drop Henry off with me?” Emma offered.

 

Regina nodded. “I think I will this time.” Granted, she still feared being around so many pure souls. “Don’t let me hurt them, Swan?”

 

Emma furrowed her brows. “Hurt who?” She asked as Regina locked the door behind her.

 

“Anybody. I…I can see souls, I can feel them. I want them so much.” She replied. “I want to take them for myself. And the children, their souls are so…” she searched for the word, “clean.” She bit the inside of her cheek. “I don’t know if I can stop myself.”

 

Emma squeezed her shoulder. “You can. You controlled yourself when we took Henry to the park, right?”

 

“I think, yes.” Regina responds.

 

“Well then…”

 

“Just promise me that you’ll stop me if you have to.”

 

“If that will make you feel better.” Emma smiled reassuringly.

 

Emma tried to make conversation with her but she found herself lost in her own thoughts. It was raining lightly, a rather chilly drizzle if Regina had to say. But it helped her gather her thoughts. She watched a few leaves break from their branches and drift to the sidewalk. Mostly, she thought that she had her feelings sorted out. She believed that she understood now, but that still didn’t leave her anymore prepared to deal with it.

She peered over at Emma, who had begun to share some sort of story about how she’d acquired her monstrosity of a car.

 

**.oOo.**

 

With Regina for company, even if it was quiet company, the walk passed faster. She watched a steady flow of children streaming from the double doors of the school and tried to pick out Henry’s head. She hoped that he would show soon, the former mayor was growing visibly antsy. Her presence alone was attracting attention that only seemed to increase her discomfort.

 

Emma squeezed her hand, “you’re doing fine.”

 

She muttered something that might have been, “sure, whatever.”

 

“There he is.” Emma declared. Seeing her, Henry picked up his pace and lunched himself into a hug. “Have a good day, kid?”

 

“Yeah, awesome. My teacher said that we’d be having a Halloween party this year and that I can bring cupcakes if I want.” At this he looked to Regina.

 

“Yes, that’s fine Henry.” Regina said. “I suppose I can help make them…”

 

His face brightened, the hug he gave her lasted longer than usual. “Thanks mom.”

 

“You’re welcome.” She looked in the direction of her mansion.

 

Emma could take a hint. “Alright, kid, let’s get going.”

 

Upon getting home Henry dropped his backpack and clicked the TV on. “Homework first, Henry.” Regina reminded.

 

Henry groaned, “come on, mom, I can do both.”

 

“Well today you’re going to focus on one.” Emma cast the former mayor a half smile. She watched the TV screen go dark once more and Henry was rifling through his backpack. She found herself a place at the table near Regina. For a moment she thought that the woman was going to move, but she stayed in place.

 

“What’s going on?” Emma finally asked, “you’ve been quieter than usual.”

 

“Can we talk about this later?” Regina tilted her head towards Henry.

 

Emma decided that Regina might just be trying to buy herself some more time, but she agreed regardless. She considered tucking Henry in early that night, it was beginning to worry her that the former mayor had something to say that couldn’t be mentioned in front of Henry. Presently the woman had her chin cupped in her hand and she was staring off. It didn’t do Emma’s nerves any favors so she muttered a quick, “I’m going to start on dinner.” Anything to take the focus off of what she didn’t know yet. With Regina it could really be anything, Emma couldn’t shake the feeling that Regina was going to throw her out.

 

**.oOo.**

 

Henry’s bedtime came too quickly. She hardly had any time at all to prepare, granted she didn’t think any amount of time would have been enough. The truth was she was afraid, speaking her mind was never particularly a place of comfort, at least not in terms of discussing things that were on her mind. But she was growing less and less comfortable with them stuck there.

 

She watched Emma clear off the table, setting the dishes in the sink, and hoped that she would take the time to wash them. It would have been a merciful dely. But apparently, washing the dishes was going to be a task for later. “Alright, Regina,” Emma began, “why have you been so quiet?”

 

“I’ve been thinking…”

 

“You always think.” Emma remarked. “You’re telling me you couldn’t have said that in front of Henry?”

 

“You haven’t asked what I’ve been thinking about.” She muttered, instantly regretting that she had probably just coaxed the next question.

 

“What have you been thinking about then?” Emma didn’t fail to deliver.

 

That was just it, she wasn’t ready to share yet. But at the same time, she needed to, before it ate away at her, before she could completely lose herself to confusion and ambivalence. “You, I suppose.”

 

“I figured.” Emma grumbled. “Anything good?”

 

“I suppose that it depends what you would call good, Swan.”

 

“Well, lay it on me already.”

 

Regina toyed with the buttons on the cuff of her sleeve, mulling over how to say it or if she should even say it at all. “You’ve done a lot for me, Emma.”

 

Emma snickered, “obviously.”

 

“You’re the first person in while.” She trailed off again. “Who tried to care about me, I mean.”

 

“I’m not _trying_ to care. I do care about you.” Emma corrected.

 

“Yes…”

 

“Who was the first person?” Emma asked. Regina could sense that she already knew the answer. She was just waiting for her to officially put it out.

 

And it took her a good while. A few minutes to say, “Daniel.”

 

“I figured as much.” Emma nodded.

 

“You remind me of Daniel.”

 

“That’s good isn’t it?”

 

“Yes. No…I don’t know.” Regina mumbled. “I think so.” She finally settled. She realized that she was coming to the hard part, the puzzling, uncomfortable part. Emma, not that she expected any different, wasn’t helping. She simply waited for her to finish saying what she was supposed to say. “I loved Daniel so much.” It was little more than a mournful whisper.

 

“And.”

 

“You remind me of him.” She was talking in circles. “I loved him and I think…”

 

“You think…” Emma prompted her to continue with a circling hand gesture.

 

Emma was staring at her so expectedly and her words were truly failing her. “I think that I might love you. But I don’t know how it’s possible.” Hastily she added, “people without souls can’t love.” Emma held a silence to compete with her own, it rattled her nerves further thinking that she has crossed the line.

 

**.oOo.**

 

Emma had come up with at least a dozen possible explanations for Regina’s withdrawal. But this wasn’t one of them. She hadn’t expected the former queen to speak up first. To gather her feelings and process them first. Finally she spoke, “You do?” It was all she could manage, when staring into Regina’s soft brown eyes. She looked so lost and exposed, Emma almost felt bad for prying the confession from her. But all the same, she was so glad that she had.

 

“I think so. But people without souls can’t love, so can I really? Is it possible…”

 

“Do you want to find out?”  Emma asked, before she could lose her bravado.

 

Regina nodded, “very much.”

 

**.oOo.**

 

Emma always had a way of taking her aback. She had expected a verbal agreement of sorts. Instead Emma cupped her hand against her cheek, the kind of tender touch she hadn’t received since Daniel’s departure. She believed that deep down, she knew that things would turn in this direction, and that was why Henry had to be asleep. For a fleeting time, Emma brushed her thumb over Regina’s lips before tilting her head to kiss them.

She wrapped her arms around the savior who held the kiss a little longer. Regina didn’t think she had even returned this kiss, but she couldn’t seem to remember how to do it anyhow. Emma pulled back and gazed at her breathing somewhat heavier.

 

It has been so long.

And Regina is so afraid.


	12. Purity Orb

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugg, finally found time to update.

_Her footsteps are light and weary. The call is so very loud, it hurts her ears. She can feel a lukewarm trickle. She thinks that her ears might be bleeding. She whimpers to herself. It seems that her candle can’t possibly burn bright enough. She tries with everything she has to make it burn brighter, but her magic fails her._

_She has to find it._

_If she can find it than she can make the candle brighter._

_But how can she find it with such a small light?_

_The odds are terribly unfair. She can barely see anything in such darkness. She only feels the briars and brambles licking at her feet and tasting her blood. She believes that they get pleasure from her pain. Most things seem giddy at her suffering._

_She feels like a child but she wants to go home. Wherever that may be._

_She takes a deep breath and pushes forward, stumbling over a log or a stump, she can’t tell which in this brand of inky darkness. She is wandering aimlessly, willing herself not to let out a choking sob as that awful, god-forsaken howl draws nearer. She knows that it is very close, she can feel the cold ebbing from it, seeping into her bones. It leaves a film of frost on skin and a glitter of ice on her lashes. Shivering now, she reaches out, feeling her way through the forest. It is growing denser and her hands run over rough bark more often than they meet with nothingness._

_She is finding it hard to maneuver._

_Branches claw at her prone face. One jabs her in the eye, it is too dark to tell if it has stolen her vision._

_Despair settles in and she feels the wraith’s presence swell. She is engorging it with her hopelessness. Her panic is of the blind sort, she finds herself tearing through the trees and in return they are tearing through her. And like every fool caught in a dark fantasy, she trips. Her foot snags on a root and she is sprawled on the ground in anguish. She can feel moss and twig against her cheek and small toadstool beneath her fingers. She claws at the ground, dirt buries itself under her finger nails._

_She is shivering all over because she can hear that grotesque call. And because she has dropped her candle, the light, her only light, is gone._

_A voice cuts through the shrill wail. It is a pleasant voice and Regina crawls towards it. Tears stream down her face. It tells her not to worry, that she doesn’t have to cry anymore, that she doesn’t have a reason for tears. But she does._

_She swears that she does._

_She can see a soft glowing in the distance. It is so bright, so pure. White-blue in color, it sooths her and brings some warmth back to her frigid body. As she draws nearer she begins to outlines. And then whole things. In soft blue light she can see crystals that also seem to pulse with light. She can see a staircase of fungi curling around various trees. She can see moths and fireflies, they seem just as drawn to the orb as she is. She can also see her hands. They are tattered, she can’t recognize them beyond the damage. She can’t imagine that her face is in any better condition. Her organza dress is muddy, shredded, and spattered with blood both fresh and long clotted. She is a dreadful sight, but a wing reaches out to her anyhow. The bird is such an untainted white. Snow white. She almost laughs. Her fingers brush the feathers and it speaks. It tells her that the light is hers._

_She stares at the large orb for a moment and wonders if it really is. It looks like it has been in this place forever with a host of vines lacing over it and a generous helping of flowers blossoming from it in iridescent purples. It has been there so long that roots curl around it, she thinks that it may be connected to one of the trees._

_“Go on.” The bird tells her._

_So she approaches the orb, it stands only a few inches shorter than she is tall. She doesn’t think that a simple touch to its surface will do her much good. So she curls herself around it, practically hugging the thing._

_Her light._

_It is hers._

_It takes away her torment. She can feel it drifting away from her. She closes her eyes. She thinks that she had only done so for a second. But it couldn’t have been because when she opens them again, her battered hands are smooth and soft and clean of blood. And the forest, it has changed too. It is still dark but it is no longer dead. It is no longer foreboding and forlorn. It feels almost welcoming. It is in full bloom and it is aglow with species of plan, Regina has no concept of._

_Various animals lap at a pool of water that may as well have been an aquamarine gemstone. She hasn’t even come across the majority of their species even in the Enchanted Forest. They are so large compared to her. And when one of them—a horse-stag hybrid creature—pushes its almost absurdly fuzzy muzzle against her, she falls backwards. It hadn’t meant her any harm, it was a gesture of affection. But it had underestimated its size or overestimated hers._

_Innocent._

_It is innocent._

_Everything here is innocent. Pure in every sense._

_She doesn’t know if she has a place here._

_The horse-stag isn’t the only thing larger than her. It seems that everything is bigger than it should be. She notices for the first time that the orb is gone. She wanders to where it had been, all that remains is a crater crawling with roots and vines._

_She reaches out to touch it._

_And she notices how small her hands are._

_It dawns on her that it is not the animals that are larger than they ought to be, but she who is smaller. She teeters over to the crystalline pool and the animals make room for her. Her fingers hover above the surface and a small fish comes up to press its nose to them. A fish with a nose, it makes no sense to her. But it is oddly charming. It distracts her for a moment, before disappearing again. Leaving her with her reflection. She expects to see her own face. And she does. But she is only a child. A little girl._

_She thinks that it should alarm her, but it doesn’t._

_Because now she knows…_

_She does belong here. She is pure, she is innocent._

_She is clean._


	13. The Waking

She woke up to Emma stroking her back. She could still feel the orb pulsing in her hands, pulsing within her. It was a pleasant sensation, she must say. A light one, a pure one. “Did you sleep well, Gina?” Emma muttered sleepily.

 

Regina nodded. “For once.” She replied. She considered that it was Emma’s doing, somehow. Having Emma in the room with her was the only change she’d made to her sleeping habits. Of course she had told Swan to sleep on the floor, clearly, at some point in the night, she had made herself comfy at the foot or Regina’s bed. “I had a dream last night.”

 

“Was it a good one this time?”

 

“I said dream, didn’t I, dear?” She replied.

 

“What was it about?” Emma asked, trailing her fingers through strands of Regina’s hair.

 

Regina hesitated, she had enjoyed the dream well enough, but out loud she thought that it might sound rather silly.  “Nothing, don’t worry about it.”  She was pretty sure that she only piqued Emma’s curiosity further.  She sat up and swung her feet over the bed’s edge.

 

“You told me about Daniel and confessed your love to me, but you can’t tell me about a good dream.”

 

“That’s right, Swan.”

 

“You are so difficult for no reason.”

 

“There’s a reason.” She replied. Evidently that reason was that she was almost embarrassed to have had such an innocent dream. One that didn’t quit fit her Evil Queen image.

 

“Is it a good one?”

 

“It’s a reason.” She ran a comb through her hair. She caught a glimpse of Emma rolling her eyes in the mirror. She turned to face Emma, fixing her with an almost warm smile, as warm as she could muster. Apparently, the conveying was a success, as Emma’s own expression lightened.

 

Absently, Regina found herself closing her hand around Daniel’s ring. Emma took that hand in her own, not for the first time, she stroked the tattoo on the former mayor’s wrist. This time Regina let her do it without discomfort. In fact it was a rather pleasing stimulant, one that she still wasn’t used to, but pleasurable no less. It left a kind sort of tingling in her belly. One that she hasn’t known in so very long. Regina trucked a strand of curly blonde hair behind Emma’s ear, and pressed a sort kiss to the cheek she had just exposed. It was something of a tester, a way to try to remind herself of how to display affection.

 

However stumbling her attempt once, it coaxed a blissful sort of aura around her. For a while she just sat there with her forehead pressed to Emma’s and the savior’s fingers curled around her wrists. She couldn’t recall the last time she had been so close to someone who actually considered her wants and well-being.

A nice thing it was. She let Emma hold her, hoping to soak in the feeling for as long as she could. Hoping to cling to her orb.

 

Pleasantness.

Kindness.

Pleasure.

Affection and love.

She hadn’t even been aware that she could feel them. Feel them without a filter to muddle them. Not one of her making and not one put there by a being much darker than herself. For once she didn’t feel so dark at all. She felt clean. Fresh. Lovable.

 

**.oOo.**

 

Henry happened upon a lot that he wasn’t particularly supposed to. He had caught Hansel and Gretel stealing from a store. He’d seen Mary meandering around with Dr. Whale. He’d caught Ruby flirting August on one occasion and then Jefferson shortly after. That was a bizarre day. He had come across some sketchy conversations in the woods, most of those had one person in common; Mr. Gold. And he found the storybook.

Indeed, Henry had a knack for knowing things he ought not to, whether he meant for it or not.

 

On that day, Henry stumbled upon something he didn’t quite understand. He was in for another boring day of school; his class had just finished their soda bottle rocket experiment so now they would be back behind desks again having buckets of information dumped on them at once. He brushed his teeth and his hair and tossed on his clothes. He had to admit that he missed Regina picking his outfits out for him, it gave him that much more time to eat breakfast. He tugged his scarf on and made his way towards the stairs.

 

Making his way from his room to the kitchen inevitably led him past Regina’s bedroom. Her door was open so he assumed that had nothing to worry about, and maybe he didn’t. But it was perplexing and strange no less to see his normally bristly and high-strung adoptive mother snuggling up against his birth mother.

  
For a change she looked gentle and happy.   
Truly so.   
He didn’t know that it was possible for Regina to be joyous in any way. Her quest for revenge made sure if that. The wraith had set it in stone. He was just growing used to the painfully subdued version of his mother and she was changing again.  
He thought that he should have been elated, but he was actually uncomfortable. Maybe a little scared.

  
He noticed her whisper something into the crook of Emma’s neck and Emma held her even tighter.

  
Emma looked up, meeting Henry’s curious eye. Without a word he darted down the hall.   
He’d walk himself to school today.

It just didn’t make sense. How could two people who detested each other, hold one another so close?


	14. A Real Family

“Wait, kid! Come back!” Emma hollered. But, she had to give him mad props, he was really trucking it. “Come on…” She mumbled to herself. Regina standing in the doorway, looking both horrified and mortified was both heart-breaking and reassuring—and she had to admit, rather amusing—all at once.

 

“He can’t just walk to school on his own.” Regina finally sputtered.

 

“He can take care of himself, trust me, he’s got my DNA.”

 

“That’s the least reassuring thing I’ve heard in a long time.” Regina snapped. It was something Emma was beginning to pick up on; the woman was twice as sassy in times of stress. But at least she was feeling in full, truly feeling.

 

“I’ll go get him, Regina.” She was wearing an expression that was all too familiar to Emma; a mix of guilt and sadness. “Hey, don’t worry too much, he just wasn’t expecting to see…that.” She couldn’t bring herself to say cuddling or anything like it yet. 

 

“Just catch up to him, Emma. I don’t like him walking to school all by himself.”

 

“I said that I would.” She gave Regina a half smile and showed herself out. As annoying as it could be, Regina’s almost excessive concern for Henry had its charm. If she had learned anything about the mayor it was that, the woman didn’t want her son hurting the way she did…probably still does. With her soul back intact, Emma hoped that she could start mending those breaks.

 

**.oOo.**

 

A few minutes had gone by since Emma hustled after Henry and Regina found herself in her garden, trying to level herself. Now that her soul was back, she found herself tossed back into the frenzied turmoil of her emotions. At that point the force of them had become unfamiliar and she didn’t quite know how to approach or handle them anymore. So, once again, she found herself tearing up with no way to pull herself out of it. She struggled to even pinpoint the source of her anguish.

 

Eventually she decided that it stemmed from confusion; now that she had her soul back, she didn’t quite know what to do with it. Loving Emma seemed like the logical way to go, but that scared her. And apparently, it scared Henry too. She couldn’t imagine Emma sticking around for much longer, now that she was as prone to her fits of anger as before. She thought herself much easier to handle without a soul, and perhaps that was exactly why Gold had sent the wraith after her in the first place.

 

Some ten minutes later, Emma returned with Henry and three icecream cones. Before Regina could refuse, she was holding one of the cones. Quickly she wiped her eyes.

 

“We stressed him out so much, he forgot that it’s a Saturday.” Emma laughed, it was such a short lived laugh. It would seem that she had finally noticed the tear tracks. “What’s wrong?” Regina had to apricate that the woman refrained from adding a ‘this time.’

 

Regina shrugged. “I think you owe Henry an explanation.”

 

“I think you mean, ‘we’, Gina.”

 

Regina folded her arms over her chest. That is what she would have liked to say, but she could offer no explanation. Frankly, she had been looking forward to hearing what Emma had to say. She could use some clarity. Some help, riffling through her feelings.

 

Emma rolled her eyes. “Alright, here goes nothing…but you’re going to have to help me out at least a little.”

 

Regina tried to ignore the side eyeing. Henry seated himself next to her and she pulled him closer, earning herself another warm smile from Emma.

 

“I know that you think that this came out of nowhere, kid, and it’s probably a little weird since…well. Everything. But it didn’t, I promise.”

 

“You guys hate each other. She’s the Evil Queen.” At this, Regina flinched. “And you’re the savior.”

 

“Yeah, well, maybe Regina needed some saving.” Emma pointed out. “That’s my job right.”

 

Henry nodded. “But you don’t kiss Archie or Grumpy when you save them.”

 

Emma chuckled. “Wow, kid, brutal.”

 

“Are you implying that you do?” Regina asked. She can’t help it, she hasn’t gotten under the savior’s skin in a while. She almost felt as though her lack of witty quips was alarming the woman.

 

“Not helping.” Emma rolled her eyes. “No I don’t kiss the dwarves when I save them. Because I don’t feel the same way about the dwarves—or anyone else—as I do Regina. Taking care of her and helping her get better, it helped me see things differently. She’s not the Evil Queen, Henry, she’s just Regina. I don’t think anyone has ever tried to help Regina, do you?”

 

Regina swallowed a lump in her throat, her eyes were growing watery again. She couldn’t recall a time where anyone tried to refute her unsavory title.

 

“Your mom has lost a lot.” Emma took Regina’s hand and turned her wrist to display the tattoo. She had to bite back a snappy remark, she wasn’t exactly ready to reveal to Henry that she had a tattoo, not after firmly telling him to never get one. “She needs love too, right? That’s how we got her soul back.”

 

“You love her?” Henry asked.

 

 Emma nodded, “very much.” She squeezed Regina’s hand.

 

“Since when?”

 

“I don’t know kid, I guess it sort of just happened.” Emma replied. “You’re going to have to ask Regina, she admitted it first.”

 

Regina didn’t think Henry’s jaw could go any slacker, but it did. “You did?”

 

She gave a very sheepish nod. “Emma has done a lot for me. She didn’t have to, she probably shouldn’t have.” She wasn’t sure how to explain it to Henry in a way he could process. But he was a smart kid so she decided that she would be blunt. “I’m not used to people caring about me, Henry. I’m…I’m happy to have someone who does, despite our history.” It sounded so strange to call herself happy. She sighed and looked down at her palms.

 

Emma slung her arm over Regina’s neck. “Besides, kid, isn’t it easier to have two moms when they aren’t fighting. If I’m with your mother we’ll be a real family.”

 

That had Regina’s stomach doing flops. For once, she hadn’t thought in the long term. Doing so seemed so daunting. So sudden.

But putting some thought into it, it didn’t seem so bad—she and Emma in a more domesticated light. They were already living together, they already had a sort of routine and, looking back on it, it was pretty nice. It was actually rather easy to picture waking up to a nice breakfast and a good morning from Swan, every morning. Though she could do without finding a sock or a single shoe thrown haphazardly and randomly on the floor. Even still she couldn’t imagine not finding Emma’s jacket draped somewhere where it didn’t belong. It felt right.  

 

“A real family…” Regina murmured to herself. That’s all she really wanted. To feel at home in the world. With a real family.


	15. Snow in Autumn

Talking to Mary wasn’t exactly part of Regina’s agenda, but Swan insisted. She couldn’t imagine that Snow was going to take very well to this encounter. She herself wasn’t taking it too well, but she needed change.   
She needed friends.   
Regina knew very well that she was still in a very dangerous place. Souls are fragile things. Once they are taken, they are susceptible to fading again. In a sense she was a junkie of sorts, if she didn’t maintain a constant stream of savory emotions then her soul could dim again, especially if dismal emotions outweighed the influx of cheerier ones.

She was already off to a bad start stressing herself out and fretting over it. The thought of trying to patching things over with someone who hated her…who she hated, for such a long time wasn’t doing her any favors either. Even with Emma reassuring her and reminding her that Mary was all cinnamon and sunshine.   
Now that Emma has chipped away most of the harder edges; anger, vengeance, and darkness, she found herself feeling rather exposed. At heart, Regina was actually rather timid, something her mother helped condition and kindle within her. Her social functioning was horribly low, when not invested in matters of politics. She couldn’t imagine making anything but a fool of herself. 

“Come on.” Emma nudged her again. “The sooner you get it over with, the better.” They had been standing outside of Mary’s loft complex for at least ten minutes and Emma was getting antsy. “Henry’s going to be so proud when he finds you that you’ve put your revenge quest behind you once and for all.”

“I don’t know about that, Swan…” She trailed off. Mary Margaret still aggravated her very much. She may have someone to help soothe the loss of Daniel, but there was no filter for Mary’s endless spewing of rainbows and sunrays. Then again, perhaps her weakened soul could use that kind of exposure, could use an extra kick to help it thrive. 

“Fine, lets go.” Regina muttered.

Emma didn’t miss a beat in heaving the door open. Regina wouldn’t take the initiative of walking in first. Instead she lets Emma lead the way and announce their arrival. “Hey Mary, I thought I’d drop in since it’s been a while. I uh…I brought Regina along.”

Mary appeared in the room, “I take it things have been going well between you two then.” 

Emma rubbed the back of her head, “you can say that.”

But Mary ignored that, “I mean it had to have been since, you only dropped by once this week.” It was uncharacteristically bitter. 

“She needed the company.” Emma protested. 

Regina herself remained quiet, this was already going terribly. The vibe was making her anxious, and she wondered how much her newly awakened soul could take. She untied her coat and readjusted it, hugging it tighter around herself. 

“Well was it worth it!?” Mary’s shriller question brought the former mayor back into the conversation.

“Yeah,” she put an arm over Regina’s shoulder, making her shift awkwardly at the unexpected attention, “really well actually.” She pulled the woman that much closer. “That’s why I asked her to come with me and say hi.” 

Mary eyed her shiftily.

Emma nudged Regina and muttered, “so say hi.” 

Regina could already feel her cheeks coloring as she lifted her hand in an awkward half-wave. 

“Wow you are not good at this.” Emma whispered under her breath.

“Yes, I know.” Regina hissed back. 

Mary’s return of the wave was just as uncomfortable and forced. 

Regina wanted to find herself a seat but didn’t have it in her to ask. Instead she propped herself up against the wall, waiting for someone to make a move or a sound. It wasn’t going to be her, she found that she didn’t have much to say. An apology seemed appropriate but didn’t want to chance one. 

“I take it, you didn’t uncover her soul?”

“I…we did.” Emma replied, “she’s been talking more lately, just not right now.”

Regina gave an indignant sniff. 

“What!?” Emma shot her a look. “It’s true.” And then to Mary, “I’m pretty sure she’s just nervous.” 

“I am not.” Regina insisted abruptly, with the faint knowledge that she didn’t serve her case any justice. “Why would I be nervous?” She was making things worse. Her constant finger twiddling probably wasn’t helping either. 

“Trust me, mom,” Emma began. Regina knew then that she was trying to suck up. “She does want to make things right, she just doesn’t know how.” She paused. “She made things right with me, in her own way, she just has to get used to you.”

It had taken her long enough to get used to Swan and now the woman was pushing her to do the same for Snow White. Yet, she wasn’t wrong. Deep down Regina supposed that it would do her well to leave her new soul untainted. It was a second chance. She couldn’t think of anyone else who had one like that. The fastest way to ruin it would be to continue her vengeful quest. She looked down at her palms, entirely unsure of how to approach this. She knew that Mary’s eyes were on her. She lifted her head, giving her hair a soft flip. Mary was usually pretty easy to read, but this time Regina wasn’t too certain of what her stare meant.

“Is it true?” Mary asked. 

Regina opened her mouth and then closed it. She still wasn’t sure, she wanted it to be true. So she said, at last, “I…yes. I think so.” She felt Emma squeeze her shoulder. She is hard-pressed to recall the last time someone had tried to reassure her so intimately. Someone besides Emma, she hoped that Mary hadn’t noticed the gesture. She wasn’t ready to delve into that territory, not when they were only just breeching the surface of their own long history. 

“Since when did you care about making good with everyone?” Regina could detect the skepticism, it leaked and oozed into Mary’s tone. 

“I lost my soul...” No that wasn’t right. “Since Henry, actually, he…” she trailed off. “He wanted me to be better. It shouldn’t have, but it took losing my soul to get there. I finally have someone worth bettering myself for.” She tried for a smile. She thought that it worked. Emma’s warmed expression told her that it did. 

At last some of the tension seemed to wind its way out of Mary. In turn, Regina allowed herself to relax some. “Do you guys want something to drink?” Mary looked towards the window, “I think hot chocolate season is starting.”

“With cinnamon.” Emma declared. 

Mary looked at Regina. 

“I suppose I’ll have some hot chocolate. And I’ll pass on the cinnamon.” 

.oOo.

“So how exactly did you help her? How do you bring a soul back?” Mary asked, taking a sip from her mug.

Emma peered at Regina, based on the look she was returned, she had to assume that the queen wasn’t ready for the entire truth to spill yet. “A lot of it was Henry.” Emma began—it wasn’t a lie by any means. “We just took care of her and let her know that she wasn’t alone. Watched a movie, went for a few walks.”

“So the small things?” Mary asked. 

Regina nodded. “They help.” She stared into her mug, watching the cream swirl within the hot chocolate. “I haven’t had many little things to appreciate in a while. I forgot how useful they could be.” Her mind began to drift. Fall was still near its beginning, she was elated to know that she might actually get a chance to enjoy it this year. Truly enjoy it without any darker undertones. Maybe she could rake up a pile of leaves for Henry to jump in, like old times. She thought that Emma might like to take part in something like that. “I enjoy autumn.” She added out loud. 

“It’s a nice season.” Mary agreed. “Very cozy. Name aside, I’m more of a spring person. But David really likes the fall too.” 

“Speaking of David.” Emma chimed in. “You going to put in a good word for, Gina?”

Mary raised an eyebrow at the nickname. 

“Yeah, we’re done with ‘Swan’ and ‘Madame Mayor’.”

“You’re done with ‘Madame Mayor’, I still call you ‘Swan’ when it is needed.” Regina set her empty mug down and crossed her arms. In a way that comforted Emma, the queen finally seemed to be getting comfortable. 

“Yes.” Mary replied, hastily clarifying, “I’ll put in a good word for her, this has actually been kind of nice.” 

Emma notices the change in Regina’s demeanor, or maybe just the air she gave off, it is softer. Warmer. She found it hard to imagine that this whole time, all the prickly mayor needed was some affection. Actually, thinking about it, she didn’t find it strange at all. What she did find hard to imagine, was why it had taken her so long to realize that most of her rage stemmed from loneliness. This whole time she had been crying for help, but it fell on a town of def ears until it became painfully obvious. 

Even still, she was surprised to hear Regina mumble a soft, “thank you, Snow.”


	16. Candlelit Autumn

Things go Gold’s way. And when they don’t go Gold’s way then he gives them that extra little push that they need to start going his way. Mills and Swan were quickly becoming problems, Swan in particular. He had, had Mills well and out of the way prior to Swan’s intervention. But then, he should have expected as much from the savior. Really, the woman had more in common with her mother than met the eye; underneath that rocky surface, she had a soft spot for even enemies if it even looked like they could be saved. And Mills, she gave off a strong aura of a puppy thrice kicked and twice abandoned. Apparently victimized queens were the savior’s weakness and Mills fit that bill to a tee. He would use it to take the savior down once and for all, after cashing in his favor of course.

 

“You don’t have to keep going after her.” Belle insisted. “She already lost her soul for months.  Isn’t that enough suffering?”

 

She had it all wrong.  She usually did. The woman was naïve but he supposed that, that was part of her charm. He could tell that he was pushing her into one of her feistier moods and he wasn’t exactly ready to deal with that yet. Not when he had other matters to attend. He couldn’t imagine that Mills would lie dormant for much longer, she always had this dreadful itch for vengeance and he’d given her something with taking revenge for. Though he decided that she’d be a fool to try.

 

“The Queen deserves more torment than that, dearie.”

 

“You had her _soul_ taken.” Belle reiterated.

 

“And she had you locked away as a pawn, ready to use against me.”

 

“Then why am I having an easier time getting over it?”

 

She was going to storm out again if he said the wrong thing, but he said it regardless. “Because you have this ridiculous soft spot. It’s the same one that the savior has and it’s going to be your end.” As well as he loved Belle, she was a liability. Mills had helped him realize that. If he gave Belle ample time to talk then surly she’d be able to convince him to sympathize. She had this beautiful but terrifying way of getting to him. Of making him want to be a better man. But a better man is a weaker man. And he couldn’t afford to be a weaker man, not with so many foes biting at his ankles.

He had seen what happened to Mills, she went soft for Henry and she had no allies. It had been so easy to take her down. He shuddered just to think about landing in a similar state.

 

**.oOo.**

 

For the first time, Regina thought that maybe her current position was worth the fall it had taken to get there. She believed that she might just be truly happy. She had to admit there were a few pangs of fear underneath that joy—she still wasn’t used to being so cozy with the Charmings and worried that saying the wrong things at ill times could stir something up. But so far they have been kind to her. She even got David to admit that he was grateful for the indoor plumbing and speedy internet the curse had given him. “Heaters are pretty nice too.” Mary had noted.

 

The Storybrooke town green was particularly nice that afternoon. By now the trees had a full crown of vibrant orange, gold, and red. Every now and again a swirl of leaves would flutter and twist down onto  their picnic blanket. It was probably rather odd to have a picnic during the night hours, but then, Regina wasn’t exactly an ordinary person. She had always fancied a candlelit dinner in the park. Frankly she would have enjoyed some alone time with Emma, but she supposed that there would be plenty of time for that. Instead she was enjoying the scent of pumpkin spice wax with Emma, Henry, Mary, and David.

 

“It probably looks good, ya know.” Emma spoke between bites of apple turnover. “To be seen with us.”

 

Regina cocked her head.

 

Taking the non-verbal cue, Emma swallowed and clarified, “If everyone sees you talking with us, it’ll probably earn you some brownie points. Let’s everyone know that they can trust you.”

 

Regina nodded, she really could use that kind of publicity. She watched Mary take a sip of her latte and offer it to David.

 

“Have you tried the pumpkin spice latte yet, Regina?” Mary asked.

 

She shook her head. “Pumpkin spice sounds good on paper. I tend to avoid actually tasting it.”

 

“Don’t like cinnamon in your coco, don’t like pumpkin spice…what do you like?” Emma asked.

 

‘You’ was on the tip of her tongue but she wasn’t about to fuel Emma’s ego. “You know that I am partial to apples, dear.”

 

“So like, warm cider.” Henry passed her his glass.

 

She ruffled his hair, “he knows what I enjoy.” She swallowed her share of cider and passed the mug back to Henry. Hot cider always did her wonders, it warmed her when she was otherwise cold to the core. “Thank you, Henry.” The conversation carried on; occasionally she would make a remark of her own, but mostly she took in the sights of an autumn night. Across the street Marco was setting up his handmade Halloween decorations.  Most of the shops had at least a start on them. She began thinking that maybe, now that the curse was broken and Henry seemed content with her, that she could spice up her mansion a little. Emma would probably enjoy some festivity. She put the suggestion out. “Though, I feel like it’s going to take more than three people to decorate the entire mansion.” It was her subtle way of inviting the other two to join in.

 

“Only if you give us a hand around the flat.” David bargained.

 

“That’s fair, I suppose.” Regina agreed.

 

“Sweet.” Henry smirked. “I get two Halloween’s this year.”

 

“Decorating two houses doesn’t mean twice as much candy.” Regina reminded him.

 

“Magic can mean twice as much candy.”

 

“We’ll see about that.” Regina replied.

 

“She’ll do it if we keep asking.” She heard Emma mummer into his ear.

 

She couldn’t exactly dispute it because the woman was probably correct. Regina had this horrible habit of caving if Henry batted his eyelashes at her enough. With the help of Emma her defenses would be particularly low. It humored her some, so she pretended not to hear the remark.

 

Drifting off again, she spied Ruby on her evening jog. She waved to Mary and Mary waved her over.  “We have some extra snacks if you want to take a break and have a few.”

 

Ruby stole a peek in Regina’s direction and the former mayor was almost certain that the woman was going to come up with an excuse to leave. But instead she dropped down and snatched the last turnover.

 

“Hey I was going to eat that!” Emma protested.

 

“Should have done it faster.” Ruby shrugged.

 

“Regina made it, it could poison.”

 

“Then why have you all been eating them?”

 

“It’s a new tradition. We play a sort of Russian roulette type of game every Thursday night.” Regina remarked. “The let me decide where the bullet goes to honor our new friendship.”

 

“And no one invited me?” Ruby asked. She bit into the turnover casing Emma to wince at her lost treat. This didn’t go unnoticed by Ruby who looked Emma straight in the eye whilst taking her next bite.

 

“I thought you were the evil queen.” Emma muttered to Regina.

 

“I’m sure you can do without one turnover.” Regina rolled her eyes. “But if it matters that much,  I suppose I can make one special for you when we get home, dear.”

 

“Yes, please.” Emma flashed a pseudo-innocent smile. Stealing a glance between the others and deciding that no one was really paying her any mind, she quickly pecked Regina’s forehead. She let her fingers linger atop Regina’s. For the time she felt safe.

For the time she felt right.

 

There was a chill to the air and she thought that, perhaps, on a later night, she could toss a blanket over she and Emma and hold the woman closer. She listened in on some of the gossip Ruby had overheard in the diner. Strangely, yet pleasantly, Regina found that Mary’s laughter was soothing. Reassuring. Maybe she wasn’t fully trusted yet, but at least they had no issue talking about mundane things around and with her.

A sense of hope welled up within her.

It was nice to feel again.


	17. Back In Routine

Every day Regina wakes up with a mixture of comfort and fear. Because every morning Emma is there, yet every morning there is a possibility that she will leave. She didn’t want to be alone anymore and Emma constantly reassured her that she wouldn’t be. Even on the nights that Emma spent at Mary’s place, she would drop by town hall and bring Regina lunch. This meant the world, seeing has how jarring it was to be back there.

She felt like she no longer belonged behind the mayoral desk after having left the seat cold for so long. She felt as though she was sneaking around, that the general populace didn’t want her back there, but had no other choice.

 

It was overwhelming to pick up where Mary had left off; to fill in the accidental cracks she left and finish the tasks that she had unwittingly over looked. Regina ran her fingers through her hair and let out a frustrated and drawn out breath. Stress wasn’t an emotion that she missed, but all the same she was trying not to take it for granted.

 

She was furiously penning in a basic outline of where city funds would be placed for the month. It should have been an easy task but her mind kept wandering. Mostly to her need to come out with her relationship with Emma and ambivalence to actually doing so.

She herself still had faint prickles of doubt.

That agitating sense that it wasn’t right for her to love the savior. There was still a part of her that was in the habit of hating Swan. She was trying everything to shut that part out, however small it was.

 

**.oOo.**

 

That was where Emma found her, sipping on the same latte she had bought her that morning. Her cheek rested in her palm and her lips pursed in concentration. It was refreshing to see her back in her element and she almost didn’t want to disturb. But she had some concerns that needed prompt vocalizing. As in some, she meant one.

 

She set a generous lunch in front of Regina alongside a small bouquet of aster and goldenrod.

 

“What did you do, Swan?” Regina asked without looking up.

 

“Nothing, yet.” She winced, “but I’m about to break some bad news.”

 

Regina moved her coffee cup, set her pen down, and looked up. “I receive that all the time, go ahead.”

 

“It’s Gold.”

 

“Naturally.” The look on her face was indiscernible to Emma.

 

“I don’t know what he’s going to do, but Belle says that he’s still not ready to let go of… whatever you did to him.”

 

“I suppose that, that’s one thing we have in common.” Regina tapped her pen against her lips. “I didn’t think that he was done with me. I’m sure that he wants me out of the way for good.”

 

“You know that I won’t let that happen, right?”

 

“Of course, I know that.” Is what she vocalized. Her eyes told a different story. There was a glimmer of doubt there.

 

“Really, I won’t.” She came behind Regina and curled an arm over Regina’s chest.

 

“That’s very distracting, Emma.”  She muttered, eyeing her paperwork with a newfound sense of longing.

 

“You have your magic back, right?” Emma asked.

 

**.oOo.**

 

Regina faltered, it wasn’t a question she had been expecting. “I—I haven’t had the chance to try it.” She hadn’t the will either. As far as she was concerned, Henry was right; it was magic that had gotten her into this mess. Magic that led her down her dark path, magic that led to the blackening of her heart and soul, and magic that had eventually led to the claiming of said soul. She wasn’t feeling particularly inclined to go back to it just yet. Especially not for a purpose that could so easily be turned to matters of taking revenge. For Regina the line between self-defense and vengeance has always been a thin one. 

 

“I think that you might want to give it a try soon.” Emma chanced, leaving a sizable knot in Regina’s stomach.  “I think I know that look; you’re thinking again.”

 

“I’m always thinking.” Regina muttered.

 

“But not this hard. What did I say?”

 

“Nothing…” it wasn’t strictly true. Technically her question had set Regina’s mind whirring again.

 

“It’s about magic isn’t it? Or is it about Gold?”

 

Regina pinched the bridge of her nose. She has confessed worse things to Emma, more uncomfortable matters… “Both.” She exhaled rather deeply. “I haven’t worked with my magic because I don’t want to.”

 

“Does this have to do with Henry thinking that it’s evil. Because magic can be used for good. I’ve used it for good.”

 

“But I don’t know if I can.” Regina admitted quietly. She wanted to believe that it was possible, but she didn’t exactly have a remarkable track record in the way of light magic.

 

“Anything can be used for good or bad, right? Just take some of your fireballs and chuck them at bad guys for a change.” Emma made it sound so simple.

 

**.oOo.**

 

Henry groaned, Regina was at work and Emma had forgotten him again. He knew he wasn’t supposed to walk home on his own, but he _really_ didn’t want to take the bus. It was always so noisy and he never had anyone to talk to being as Paige, Ava, and Nicholas all took different buses. So he shrugged his backpack onto his shoulders and did what he seemed to do best, break Regina’s rules. Surely she wouldn’t be too mad, she has been more lenient with him since Emma’s arrival.

 

Anyways, it was a nice day out and his jacket and scarf kept out the October chill. There was a soft pitter patter of rain and puddles were already beginning to collect in the cracks in the sidewalk and the dips in the side of the road.

 

His mind was abuzz with plans for the rest of the day. Since he was already breaking one of Regina’s rules he would make up for it by finishing his homework early. And then he would play a little something on his game cube. He hadn’t used that in a while.

 

It was a solid plan.

But plans usually change.


	18. Revelations

Henry didn’t come home.  
Regina knew she was at work, that she had to be there. But she still felt horrifically guilty. That maybe if she hadn’t pestered Emma to bring her lunch and listen to her complain, that she would have walked Henry home. If only…

She doesn’t know if she’s enraged or distressed. Ready to weep or to throw fireballs. So she tugged at her hair as she fought to suppress a round of tears. She didn’t have time to cry, not this time. That afternoon, they had been talking about Gold making a move and what to do about it instead of being there to prevent it. For it, Henry was gone. 

“It might not be him.” Mary pointed out.

“Then who!?” Regina snapped, she didn’t mean to but she was scared. “Who else would keep him from coming home?”

“Maybe he went to visit Paige?” Mary tried.

“For two days!? Without telling me?” Her voice was still raised and she could tell that Mary was growing either weary or aggravated. Perhaps both. But she can’t curb her tongue. How could she pose a bunch of maybe’s instead of addressing the real problem?

“He hasn’t exactly told you where he was going in the past, has he?” She bit back. 

“How dare you?” Regina narrowed her eyes, getting to her feet.

“Hey, hey, Gina, calm down.” Emma’s hand fell on her shoulder, lightly pushing her back down. And then she addressed Mary, “sorry, she doesn’t mean to yell, she’s just worried.” 

Mary’s expression remained uncharacteristically stony. 

“I just want Henry home safe.” Regina spoke for herself. She thought that perhaps she should apologize for herself as well, but she couldn’t bring herself to do so. 

Mary’s face softened some. “We all do.”

“For what it’s worth, I agree with Regina, Gold has to be behind this one.” Emma said. “He has to know that she has her soul back and I don’t think he’s done punishing her yet.”

“For what?” David asked.

Regina didn’t particularly want to vocalize any one of her past misdeeds. Thinking about them always left her feeling at least somewhat disgusted with herself, much less saying them aloud. So she left it at a simple, “for Belle.”

“What did you do to Belle?” Mary questioned. 

Regina shook her head. “Can we just talk about finding Henry.” The self-loathing was creeping in and when she needed it the least. She couldn’t think about that right then. Not when she had more pressing matters at hand. “Gold has never been subtle in the past.” She noted out loud. 

“He isn’t afraid of any of us.” Emma added, giving Regina the impression that they were on the same page.

“He probably isn’t hidden at all.” Regina finished, looking to Emma for confirmation. 

“I was thinking the same thing.”

“But I don’t think that Gold would keep him in the shop…” Mary gave her input.

“No.” Regina agreed. “His house, he would have taken Henry home with him.”

“You think so?” David asked. 

“She doesn’t exactly have any other leads.” Emma mumbles. 

She hadn’t meant to, but she had just driven a new sense of dread into Regina. If not at Gold’s manor, then where? She rubs her face with her hands and releases a slow frustrated breath. Emma came behind her, rubbing her back. 

“We’re going to find him, I promise.” Emma assures her. “I mean we have Snow White and Charming, a savior, and…” she nudges Regina, “a badass ex-evil queen.”

“We’ll see how much ‘ex’ is left when I find Gold.” Regina half-growled. Her lost soul was more than enough to tickle her knack for vengeance, but the capture of her son. Her Henry…her’s and Emma’s Henry. 

She noticed Mary shift awkwardly, she could tell that the woman was trying not to display her discomfort, perhaps distrust, so openly. Regina considered taking it down a notch, but how could she when Gold had her son? How could she when she could feel her soul shrinking again. She was letting too much dark in. He had taken the very thing that had saved it in the first place. It was a great plan on his end, really. It hurt Emma, it caused her strife, and given time it would ebb her soul away again without the trouble of summoning another wraith. Regina looked up at Emma with desperation in her eyes. “We have to get him back.” And softer still she added, “don’t let me lose my soul again.”

“You won’t.” Emma said firmly.

.oOo.

She had just made two huge promises. She wondered if she should have made them at all. They were such bold and encouraging words, but she wasn’t sure if they were true, no matter how much she wanted them to be. 

Regina wanted to be alone and had walked out…more like stormed out. Mary very visibly flinched as the door slammed shut. “Sorry,” she apologized, “it’s a habit.” And Emma thought that Mary truly did trust Regina, at least to some degree. Which was some good news. 

“I’ll go get her.” 

“Careful, Emma.” David cautioned 

“Don’t worry, she wouldn’t hurt me.” Emma shrugged. If there was one thing she had learned it’s that alone is the worst thing Regina can be, especially when so nerve-wracked. So Emma found herself dashed down the sidewalk in the rain. The mayor hadn’t gotten too far. From the looks of it the rain didn’t bother her any, at least not as much as it bothered Emma. It had a chill to it that had the sheriff shivering. 

“Hey.” Emma greeted. 

The woman turned her head. “I said that I wanted to be…”

“Alone.” Emma cut her off. “Yeah, we both know that you hate being alone.”

“I need time to think.” 

“Then think with the rest of us.” Emma laughed. She probably shouldn’t have, she knows that Regina hates it when she laughs at times when laughter isn’t exactly warranted. She watched Regina cross her arms and shoot her a sort of glare. Emma sighed, time for a new tactic. She took Regina by the wrists and pressed their foreheads together. “It’s freezing out here. And wet. Please come back inside.”

“It’s not that cold.” Is all she replied. 

Emma kissed her nose. 

“Come on, Mary will make some coffee and then we’ll march right on over to Gold’s place if that’s what you want.” Frankly it was what Emma was feeling for. A good old fashioned kicking in of a door followed by a kicking of ass. 

.oOo.

Mary rubbed her eyes. “David.”

He shrugged. She knows him well enough to know that he doesn’t know how to respond. She turned away from the window. She just wanted to make sure things went well between the two. Apparently, they had. More than well really.

A part of her suspected that she already knew. A lifetime of true love saving her life and her happiness had taught her of its power. To save a soul like Regina’s…to bring an entire soul back. That would take more true love than anyone could imagine. Potent true love at that. Mary decided to herself that, between Emma and Henry, there was no way her soul wouldn’t have been revived. 

Even still, she wasn’t sure how to take this newfound confirmation. Emma, her Emma, finally had a true love of her own. Albeit, her lover was an ex-villain with a rather grey set of morals. A woman who loved her son. Loved him enough to tear Gold apart. She pinched the bridge of her nose, but how could she possibly object. If Emma loved her, she couldn’t possibly have that much darkness left within her. And she couldn’t imagine that, that darkness would remain much longer. 

She just hoped that Emma could keep Regina from falling back into a dark place. Or maybe she hoped that Regina would keep Emma from darkening her soul. Who was she kidding, they were both pissed. Coming to terms with whatever was going on between them would have to wait. “David, I have to stop them from doing something reckless.”


	19. And She Smiled

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the string of boring/uneventful chapters. I was having some writer's block when it came down to this story and was just trying to muscle through it instead of putting the whole fic on stand still. Thanks for bearing with me lol, this chapter should be a better one.

She knew it was a mistake when she found herself lying on the floor, next to Emma, with her head throbbing. Henry was not at Gold’s, he never had been, at least that’s the impression Regina was under. She thinks that it might have been a trap the whole time. A set up that she and Emma had so impulsively fallen for. She looked over at Emma, longing for solace. But the savoir was still out cold. She only vaguely remembered how she ended up in that room with ankles bound and wrists adorned with a strap that kept her magic well and buried. She tugged at the chains fastened around her ankles, knowing very well that they wouldn’t give.

 

She laid back down, shivering, feeling alone despite having someone so close. She needed to know that Henry was okay, hopefully at home safe, now that Gold has gotten what he really wanted. If that was the case, she supposed that she wouldn’t mind being chained up wherever she was. She closed her eyes, listening to the draft as it hissed by.

 

She couldn’t say for how long she had been asleep but she wakes up to blue eyes and a warm hand cupped over hers. “Hey.” Emma greets softly.

 

Her throat was dry and her head still ached. Her voice came out harsh and strained, “hello, Swan.” She takes a breath. “It’s about time you decided to wake up.”

 

“Me?” Emma rolled her eyes, “I’ve been awake for ten minutes now, at least.”

 

“And I woke up earlier and had enough time to fall back asleep before you woke up once.” Regina argued, it brought her a much needed sense of normalcy.

 

Emma chuckled, “so, this was a pretty big mistake, huh?”

 

Regina nodded, “that’s correct.”

 

“Well at least we know where Henry isn’t.” She trailed off. She blinked and made a face. An expression of hurt and confusion. “I don’t feel so well, Regina.”

 

“It’s a little hard to feel good when you’re chained to the floor.” Regina agreed.

 

**.oOo.**

 

Belle had to admit she was afraid. She wanted to see the best in Gold, she truly did. And maybe she still did, at least a little bit. But seeing Henry wake up alarmed and confused had been an eye opener. The man she loved needed to change.

 

Henry walked alongside her and all she could do was tell him that she was so sorry that she wasn’t able to keep Gold in check and that she was trying to help him see the light just as Henry helped Regina to do that.

 

“Are you taking me home?” He asked.

 

“I’m taking you to Mary and David.” She replied. “I just hope that Emma will still be with them.” If she was too late…she didn’t know what she would do. Emma didn’t deserve this. Regina, she liked to see the best in the woman. Despite it all, she didn’t think that the former queen deserved what Gold had in mind. She already lost her soul once. She already lost love once.

 

Belle wrapped at Mary’s door desperately.

 

“Belle?” She remarked. “Henry!” She gathered him into her arms.

 

“Please tell me that Emma is still here.” Belle said.

 

Mary winced, “you know Emma, she gets something in her head and you can’t keep her from it.”

 

“Especially not with Regina encouraging her.” David added.

 

Belle stole a glance at Henry, she didn’t want to worry him any more than he already was. “We have to get to Gold’s house, fast.”

 

**.oOo.**

 

Emma couldn’t help the surge of rage that broke through her floodgates, seeing Gold standing at the top of the staircase. That was the man who seemed to have her destiny on a string. That was the man who got a kick out of toying with her parents, her friends, and their friends. That was the man who had taken Henry to get to Regina. That was the man who claimed Regina’s soul without even a hint of mercy nor remorse.

That man was darkness through and through. And now he stood at the top of the staircase taunting she and Regina both.

 

She could hear his cane colliding with the floor as he came to stand before her. Behind him trailed a shadow so inky black it may as well have not been there at all. She noticed Regina visibly shudder and curl herself into a meek ball. And Emma didn’t know how it was possible; had he mastered the beast? Could a person master such evil?

 

“You’ve deprived it of a meal, Swan, so perhaps you’d like to feed it instead.” Gold spoke on the creature’s behalf. It let out a grotesque, mournful wail and Regina winced again, squeezing her eyes shut. But Emma knew that she couldn’t shut it out entirely and she wanted nothing more than to shield Regina from it. From the noises and the sights.

 

“Shall I let it feed?” He asked as though he was actually going to let her decide. He banged his cane once on the floor and the chains fell away. He knew that she wouldn’t run, not with the wraith blocking the exist. And neither of them were in the position to attack him.

 

“I’m sorry.” Regina mouthed. And Emma had to ask what for. “You wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for me.” She shook her head. Emma took the mayor in her arms, doing her best to wipe the woman’s tears. Trying to tell her that it wasn’t her fault and that her own hot-head and over confidence had a hand in their predicament. She was too heroic for her own good these days. Too bold. “I think that we accomplished this one together, Regina.” Emma tried to joke.

 

Gold beckoned the wraith forward. “Your soul is going to feed it for years to come. A dark soul…” He looked to Regina, “is not as appetizing as a pure one.”

 

The wraith wafted forward, chilling Emma to her very core.

To her soul.

 

She tried to savor everything her soul was. The love. The hope. The light. But cold tendrils were seeping in and it was growing harder to reap any joy from her memories. She tried to reach out, as though the physical grasping could actually help her cling onto the silvery ribbons of her soul as they fled her body.

 

Regina’s face, that caring and lovely face, was twisted in fear, determination, and, somehow, acceptance. She looked every bit as heroic as Snow White. As Prince Charming. As Red or August, or Emma herself. And she hadn’t even acted yet.

 

**.oOo.**

 

Regina stood, looking far more confident and much bolder than she felt. Than she thought that she would ever feel. Her legs trembled, but she would hold her ground.  looked back at Emma, her eyes growing damp. She had fought so hard to get her soul back. She was just starting to truly use it, to truly feel with it and love with it.

And now she was going to lose it again.  

Already she is despairing. She was in for another up-mountain battle. She was used to fighting, she has fought all her life. She supposed she could fight again. She would have to, because wasn’t going to let Emma suffer the way she had.

 

“Regina, no.” Emma hissed. Regina felt a hand around her ankle, she carefully shook it off, standing in front of the savoir as the wraith comes down, a vile swarm of evil whispering icy tendrils. They snaked like fingers over her face and heart and then deeper still until they are touching and pulling at her essence. At everything she was and had blossomed into. They pierced into the old Regina and maimed  the new, in ways she couldn’t comprehend.

 

She could still feel Emma’s hand clutching her own.

How could she not? The savoir was clining almost painfully tightly. But she welcomes it, at least she knew that she was still going to have all of the support she had the first time. Maybe that was why it was so easy for her to look down at Emma and, despite the horrific terror stirring within, smiled.


	20. Halves

Regina tried to focus on Emma’s touch and that alone, it was much kinder than the fingers around her soul. 

“Regina, don’t do this to yourself.”

“I’m not doing this to myself. I’m doing if for you. You don’t know what it’s like to lose your soul and I’m not going to let you find out.” She saw Emma move her mouth as if to protest. She spoke again, before the savior could. “I’ve fought before, I can do it again.”

“But you don’t have to.” Emma insisted. 

Before Regina knew it, Emma had shoved her out of the way. She felt the frigid pull of the tendrils leave her. She still felt a phantom frost on her face, tasted it on her lips. But the warmth was returning to her heart. To Emma’s horror it was on her again. “Nice try, Emma, but they only have one target.” 

Emma looked completely aghast, “how do you manage to be so infuriating even when you’re trying to help.”

“I suppose it’s my calling, to make things as aggravating for you as possible.” Granted she could say that it was Emma’s purpose to irritate her. 

The wraith drew closer. “Well, now would be a great time to see if you can use your magic.” Emma suggested. 

She knew very well that even if she could, it would only delay the creature. But she would humor Emma, wondering to herself if it was worse to give the woman a false sense of hope. She closed her eyes and willed a burst of fire into her palm. It wasn’t strong enough to stay lit against the bitter nip of the wraith. She lit it again and tossed it at the wraith before it could die. 

She could hear her name.  
It sounded nice on Emma’s lips.   
She was glad to have it accompany her into a familiar nothingness.

.oOo.

She woke up wondering with a furious cry echoing in her ear. It might have been Emma’s. But Emma was not around to ask. Regina supposed that it didn’t matter. Her head hung over, she felt bleaker than ever. She had, had so much and now she didn’t remember how it felt. Try as she might she can’t conjure up any of the warmth Emma’s face had brought her. 

Regina rubbed her head, there is a rather sizable knot on it and it ached. But she didn’t lay back down. She spied Henry sitting across the room, he hadn’t yet noticed she was awake. But that was no surprise, she was always rather quiet. At last he looked up from his comic. His eyes were puffy and red, a look Regina knew all too well. She asked more or less because it seemed appropriate to do so, “why were you crying?”

“This happened because of me.” He declared. “You told me to wait for you but I walked alone anyways.”

She reached out to touch his face, a phantom of an action. “It’s not your fault, Henry. You didn’t know.” She felt nothing when his arms wrapped around her waist. She felt nothing when his face nuzzled against her chest. But she stroked his hair anyways because it was what she was used to.

“You’re awake!” Mary exclaimed, and it rendered to Regina, that she was not in her own house. 

“More or less.” Regina replied. She longed to be truly awake. “Where’s Emma?”

“She’s with Belle.” Mary answered. 

“Belle?”

“Yeah, Belle thinks she has a solution.” For the first time, Regina noticed David lingering behind his wife. “They’ve been in the library most of the day.”

“And where are they now?” Regina questioned.

“Emma said that she didn’t have time to ask you for permission.” Mary confessed, “so she broke into your vault to get a few things.” 

Swan was lucky that rage was muted for Regina.

.oOo.

“Are you sure this is going to work?” Emma asked for the eighth time since they began.

“If she loves you as much as you think she does, then yes.” Belle nodded very firmly. 

“So, two vials of siren tears, a single strand of unicorn fur, and one albino peacock feather. Do we need anything else?”

“Just Regina and some morally-gray magic.”

“Just Regina. Got it.” Emma laughed. 

Acquiring Regina’s presence was as easy as dropping by her mother’s apartment. Getting Regina to use some of that morally-gray magic was another feat. One that took a ridiculous amount of coaxing, a momentary flare of her own temper, and a lot more patience. So patience that even Mary was growing antsy. “Please, Regina, we have everything else ready I just need you to do your magic thing.” 

Again, Regina shook her head. Emma couldn’t tell if she was afraid of messing it up and hurting the both of them or if she is simply unmotivated. “I would do it myself, but I don’t know how.” Emma stated. She couldn’t even rip out a heart much less, a soul and guide it into a tiny vial. “Once it’s out I can do the rest.” She had faith that she could bind it with the unicorn fur and then split it with the peacock feather. She just needed the soul to split.

She looked so exhausted and worn out, as though she would sooner wither away than make a move. But she sighed, very audibly. “Alright, Swan, but that’s all I’m going to do. Don’t expect me to fix things when they don’t go your way.” Without warning, Regina plunged in tugging at her very essence. She had none of the gentleness that Emma was expecting. But then, she hadn’t taken Regina’s newly recovered indifference into account.   
She hadn’t accounted for her own either. So it was a bitch to power through it. She recalled every essay she had to muscle through in high school, every resume she had to type. Somehow that simple task, the one she had been so pumped to go through with, seemed much more taxing than any of the latter. But she looped the unicorn fur around her soul. And with Belle’s help, it was severed in two. The second piece of her soul clings to the peacock feather until Belle knocks it off and into the second vial.

Very faintly she remembered thinking how odd it was that her soul appeared so small. She didn’t have a chance to dwell on that though, before Belle poured the vial into her mouth. Cantaloupe. Emma burst out laughing. That’s what her soul tasted like? Of all the fruits, it tasted like cantaloupe. Maybe she was just giddy from getting her soul back. She reached for the other vial, but Mary had gotten there first.

.oOo.

Had it really been that easy? Regina wasn’t used to things coming so effortlessly to her. For it, she believed that it couldn’t possibly be true. It had been so hard the first time. Even still she could feel. It was something of a pleasant tingling in the least physical sense. A gentle fuzz, a cottony feel that played at her mind. 

Her eyes met Emma’s. Maybe it had been so easy because that time she had a sort of fail safe. Because she had someone whose soul had fit so seamlessly well with her own.  
A soulmate?  
If Emma hadn’t already held the position, she did now.

A soulmate. She didn’t want to smile and blush like that in front of Mary, Belle, and David, but she couldn’t particularly hold back that time. A soulmate.   
A lover.

.oOo.

That smile was all the confirmation and comfort Emma needed. Thank God for Belle’s reading hobby. As she has done so many times, she took Reinga’s hand. She didn’t know quite what to say so she simply asked, “say, Gina? Did it my soul taste like cantaloupe to you?”


	21. The Man Who Taught

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is the last chapter. Mostly because I feel like I'm running out of ideas and I don't want to draw a fic out if I don't have anything good to add. That and I feel as though the last few chapters just haven't been as strong and I would rather wrap things up in an at least semi-satisfactory way than to draw it out and ruin a decent fic. 
> 
> So a big thank you to everyone who has commented, read, left kudos, and just supported the fic! You guys are wonderful and make fics worth typing. :)

Revenge and forgiveness.   
Pain and happiness.  
Numbness and emotion.  
Hate and love.  
Dark and light.  
Regina has known each very well. She has chosen between them many times, mostly making the wrong choice. And she was going to have to choose between them again. She wondered if there was an in between—if she could choose love and forgiveness for one or two people while choosing hate and revenge for another. She wondered if she could have light and happiness if she chose hate and vengeance. She wondered if she even wanted to do that anymore; in retrospect it was exhausting. It took a special kind of exertion to persistently track someone down and tear them apart. It took a different kind of strain to maintain such a passionate hatred. 

As she ran her fingers through messy, blonde curls, she wondered how she had done it at all when it was so much more effortless to care for a person. When it felt so much better love someone. She kissed Emma’s neck, running her hand down the woman’s side. It felt so much lighter to have a genuine soulmate. 

But it was also more frightening. She now had someone else to lose. She now had to deal with a handful who still didn’t want to see a savior with an Evil Queen. She still wasn’t sure where Mary stood, they hadn’t exactly pulled the band-aid carefully. Regina locked her hands with Emma’s, content to just lay there savoring a moment of peace.

.oOo.

Belle knew that she was going to have to pick a side. It was either Gold or Mary. Mary who had been kind to her in the past and still was in the present. Gold set a cup of tea before her. Convincing him not to hurt Regina, so far, has been fruitless. “How can you be mad on my behalf?” Belle had asked and he couldn’t even bother to give her a straight answer. She knew it was simply because he wanted an excuse to take the former queen down. At least that’s what it was now. He had a point, that she would need to confront Regina about things eventually. But she had a feeling, especially with Emma around, that the mayor would be more open minded.

“You said you were going to change.” Belle said again after taking a sip of the tea. “I don’t want to see you…” she couldn’t quite get killed off of her tongue, “hurt.”

“I never made a promise of that, dearie.” He replied. “And they can try it.” 

The problem was, that she knew that they would.   
The problem was that she knew that she couldn’t take his side. It had been damage enough to her sleep, knowing that she hesitated on bringing Henry back. He was just a boy and she had second thoughts about returning him. She rubbed her hands over her face. Did Gold know what he was doing to her?

.oOo.

“How did you trap him the first time?” Emma asked.

“Lots of magic and enchantments.” David replied. 

“We don’t have much of that here.” Emma frowned. They had Regina, but that was about it and the woman had made it decently clear that she hasn’t surpassed her teacher yet. She wished that Mary was present to give her opinion, how had, ‘just dropping Henry off at Granny’s’, turned into an hour-long endeavor. 

“Do we have anything on our side?” Emma asked.

David looked to Regina who promptly let out the most exasperated sigh Emma had ever heard. 

“Guess you get to be the savior this time.” Emma nudged her. 

“I don’t think so, Swan.”

“Don’t you have something in your vault that could help?”

“I do not.” Regina frowned. “The only thing I can think of would be to get that dagger, but it never leaves Gold’s side.”

“So what else could we do?” Emma asked. 

“We have to act before he does.” David put in, leaving Emma with the faint impression that they were just going to waltz in with no plan whatsoever, other than ‘snatch the dagger’. 

.oOo.

Belle hadn’t the chance to make up her mind when the door to the pawn shop slammed open. In its frame stood Mary and David armed with a bow and arrow and a sword respectively. Emma held a gun that Belle was almost certain she wouldn’t have the heart to use—even if she did she couldn’t imagine Gold allowing it to remain in the picture for long. And Regina held nothing, not that she needed to when she could have magic sizzling on her finger tips in no time. 

“Just tell them you won’t bother them.” Belle urged Gold. 

“Oh I can tell them, dearie, but I won’t mean it.” He gave a wolfish grin. 

She just wished that she had more time to talk him out of things. She knew that she could, but everyone was always so hellbent on rushing into things. If only she could get her hands on the dagger. She bit the inside of her cheek. Maybe they liked to charge into battles, but Belle, she liked to wait until the right moment. 

She didn’t know what exactly that entailed but she would know it when she saw it.

.oOo.

The gun was a great plan but a short lived one. She had managed to fire it twice, the first bullet Gold sent rebounding and the second turned to dust and dropped. It was joined in seconds by the gun it was shot from. 

“Alright, that didn’t go as planned.” Emma mumbled. 

“Did you really think that a bullet could go faster than dark magic?” Regina asked as Mary and David charged. Emma could see it on the mayor’s face that she didn’t expect any outstanding results there. She looked completely unsurprised when the sword kept swiveling around Gold instead of at him. Emma had no clue what kind of magic that was but she was getting some pretty wicked secondhand frustration from David. Regina looked equally unsurprised when all of Mary’s arrows seemed to hit exactly the spots that she wasn’t aiming for.

“I guess I’m up.” 

With that Regina’s stoic façade crumbled some. “You don’t have a weapon.” 

Emma lifted her hands, “I always have a weapon.” She winked. But inwardly she hoped that Regina would follow her into this one. She’d be the distraction. 

.oOo.

Regina admired Emma’s brazenness, but lord, she loathed it. That sort of reckless boldness was what got the best of heroes killed. So she stepped forward with Emma. Emma who had managed to land a rather impressive punch on surprised alone. She followed it up once and then twice more before Gold finally shoved her back in a shower of purple-black magic. 

Emma landed with a thud as Regina tossed her own ball of magic of a brighter purple. Her strike found a place on Gold’s hip. She noticed Belle visibly cringe and wondered if she should worry about her. But she continued to act on standby. Gold got to his feet as Emma did. 

Emma looked to Regina and they closed in together. Emma with her fists raised and Regina with her magic. Mary and David readied their own weapons. With a turn of his wrist David was bound by a makeshift rope of wires ripped from telephone cords and electric lamps. Mary was tossed in the other direction.

Regina silently cursed to herself; he was outnumbered, how could he possible have the upper hand? She already knew the answer. His magic put him at such a high advantage and she had no clue how to counteract it. His next strike was for her. She disappeared in a cloud of smoke, fully intending to re-appear behind him. Instead she came out on the other side of the room and horribly disoriented. She chided herself for not leaving herself the time to become reacquainted with her magic. 

Her own folly left Gold with enough time to snatch Emma. Mary cried out, with an apology to David for not finishing untying him, she ran towards Emma. The ground rolled beneath her and she was down again. 

“Looks like I’ll have one less thing to worry about.” Gold smirked as he lifted Emma off of the ground. He was using his magic to choke her, a favorite move of his. 

“Put her down, Gold.” Regina growled. “You haven’t finished me.”

Gold chuckled. “It isn’t always about you, dearie. I need her out of the way as well.”

She watched Emma fruitlessly and instinctually claw at her throat. Each red mark that she unwittingly drew upon it, stung Regina a little more. “Put her down, Gold.” She repeated again, this time lacking the power of the first demand. “Don’t kill her.”

“As long as she’s alive she’s in the way.”

Regina knew those words all too well. For so long, they had been her own. Emma was kicking at the air now and Mary was screaming. Belle was on her feet, begging him to let go. His focus was on Regina though. Maybe he wanted to see the look in her eye as another lover died away before her.

Like that, Regina knew once and for all that her mother had been wrong; that love is not weakness. It brings a sort of higher strength that she hadn’t imagined it would. It brought the need to protect. Somehow that brand of determination coaxed within her a level of magic and determination she hadn’t quite had access to.   
She wasn’t going to let another lover die before her eyes.   
She wasn’t going to let another lover die on her behalf. 

Her mind went to Henry. Henry who would be horrified to see Emma at such risk. She has kept him from his mother in the past. In the present she knew that she couldn’t let him lose her. She met his eyes briefly before unleashing her first fireball. It found a spot on Gold’s arm, nothing he couldn’t brush off but enough to accomplish her goal. His grip on Emma slackened. When he turned to snarl at her, she knew that she was the target. It was just as well, if she or Emma had to fall, she would be the one. Emma deserved to live on. Emma would care for Henry very well. 

Regina’s magic wasn’t as strong as it used to be, her skills still rusty from a lack of use. So she couldn’t fend off the return of fire. It slammed into her with a breath-stealing force. She slammed against one of the display cases. It shattered around her, a few trinkets—some on the heavier side—falling atop her. Each one sends a fresh unsavory sensation flooding through her. Her head and back throbbed, she could feel a warmth trickling down from her temple. She thought that a study and bulky wooden sparrow was the culprit.   
It took a moment for her to gather her bearings and by the time she had, Gold already had her a few feet from the ground at a rather ideal height for a forceful toss. That time she connected with the wall on the other side of the room. Back contacted first followed by her head.   
Things went fuzzy.

She huffed and wiped the bloodied corner of her mouth. Her hair was in a state of disarray, falling inconveniently into her face. She made an attempt to stand but she felt dizzy. The fuzz hadn’t yet cleared. She heard someone call her name.  
The slid of metal told her that David was awake again. She knew it when Gold didn’t make another attack. Shaking the last of the fog out of her head, she observed David. He grazed Gold’s cheek but that was as far as he got. 

A sense of dread crept up as Emma took up his sword. She lunged at Gold but he evaded. She lunged again and only nicked him. The wound was already healing. Regina shut her eyes and transferred some of her magic into the sword. Emma went in for another stab, this time catching him in the arm. It bled. And it continued to bleed.   
Emma was a threat then. His attack was much fiercer, she was against the wall with her own sword aimed at her. A complete sense of dread overtook the former queen and she thought that it was happening again. That her lover would be taken while she sat helplessly. Regina tried to take hold of the sword with her own magic but she found herself woefully overpowered. Perhaps she couldn’t deflect the blade nor change its direction, but she could block it. And she did, throwing herself between it and Emma. It finds a home in her side and she cried out in pain. Emma helped hold her upright as agony burned white hot, up her side. She cried out again.

Emma squeezed her hand, but it wasn’t enough. She tried to focus on the arm that held her up, on the sensation of closeness. Of the woman she needed to protect. “You’re doing great, Regina.”

“Emma, I’m getting my ass kicked.” She wheezed. 

And Emma laughed, “You said ass.”

“Not now, Swan.” She hissed.

“I never thought I’d get to hear you say ass.” Emma muttered regardless. “At least I’ll die knowing that I got to hear you say ass.”

“You’re not going to die.” Regina scowled. Not if she could help it. Everything ailed so terribly, but she hadn’t fought that hard just to die at the edge of a sword. She pushed away from Emma, catching sight of Belle, lingering towards the back of the shop. It crossed her mind to materialize right behind the woman and hold her hostage. She should, she really ought to. But Belle had been fighting alongside them…  
She cursed herself for going so soft at a time when she needed to be harsh.

She shut her eyes again and charged forward, throwing as much magic as she could muster into her palms, hoping that her desire to keep Emma safe would be enough. She hadn’t anything else at her disposal save for sheer willpower. And as she charged forward Belle made a move.   
Mary shouted. 

This time, Regina wasn’t afraid. For a moment it didn’t hurt like hell. For a moment she could only feel the magic coursing through her veins, a different kind of magic. She realized that it was light. She never thought that she would be able to access that kind of magic. Yet it exploded from her hands in what rendered to her as slow motion in a glorious white-gold burst. It slammed into Gold only moments before she did. 

She had him tackled, but she didn’t think that she could hold him in place. On a good day she wasn’t the most physically strong, not like Emma who had admittedly enticingly toned arms. Coupled with a decent puncture wound…  
Her hold wouldn’t last. 

But he was dazed. All she had to do was plunge her hand into his chest and yank. He snarled at her.   
She should have felt hatred. Anger. Darkness. But all she felt was empathy. She had seen his kind of dark, she had lived it. She had been it. She could see Belle standing there still and thought that there was hope for him yet. Just as there had been for her. Indeed, she should have wanted him dead. She should steal away and plan his demise just has she had done Snow. Innocent Snow. She should have killed him right then. But instead, she hoped for the best for him.   
For the man who taught her to forgive and led her to be forgiven.  
For the man who had led to her soul’s depart.

For the first time in a long time, she feels secure in herself. She trusts herself.  
She let the ball of magic die in her grasp and released her hold on his collar.   
She in forgiving him, she has forgiven herself.

She knew that she had hesitated for too long and had lost her window. For a moment she wondered what she had become. For another she wondered what she had just cost herself and Emma. She braced herself for his killing strike. But it didn’t come.

It didn’t come because Belle held the dagger in her hands. Regina realized that she had knocked it from Gold’s grip in tackling him. Her window was still open, but instead she staggers back and away from the man. She needed a trip to the hospital anyways. 

Belle looked down upon her, “don’t kill him, just give me a chance to work with him.” 

Belle didn’t know that Regina had already decided that she wouldn’t. That she was going to prove once and for all, to herself, to everyone in that God forsaken town, and to that extraordinarily aggravating Blue Fairy, that she wasn’t a killer. That her soul had been worth saving, not once, but twice. “I won’t.” She couldn’t have if she wanted to.

When she came to, she was in the hospital, a scratchy and gaudy gown rubbing against her skin. There was a second rubbing and it took her a moment to gather than Emma was holding her hand, stroking it with her thumb. Emma pushed a tuft of bedraggled bangs out of Regina’s face and kissed her forehead. A forehead that was still pulsing unpleasantly. A careful touch revealed a large knot and a generous scab.

“Emma.” Her voice came out scratchy. 

“Yeah.” Emma replied. 

“How long have I been out?” She almost didn’t want to know.

“Only two days.” Emma answered. “You have a few stitches.” She pulled the blankets back for Regina and lifted the gown some. 

“A few?!” Regina remarked, “there are…” Just what she needed was more scars. Her mother hadn’t exactly left her feeling comfortable in her skin as it was. 

“Hey, it’s alright.” Emma assured her. “They’ll help me remember just how much you love me.” She pulled the gown back down and the blankets back up. “And…they’ll remind the town that, not only have you changed, but you can still give them hell if they hassle you.” She nudged the mayor playfully. Somehow Emma had a way of making her feel secure, perhaps more than she ought to. “Right guys?”

For the first time Regina noticed the others in the room. Henry—of course—Mary, David, and, she squinted, Ruby?

“Yeah, that is Ruby.” Emma confirmed. “Even Granny and Ruby are here, they made you some soup.” 

“You better enjoy it, I worked hard on it.” Granny muttered.

“What about Belle?” Regina asked. She had been meaning to talk to the woman. 

“Keeping Gold busy, he’s pretty pissed but he can’t do anything about it. She agreed to help him find a way to cross the town line.” Emma answered. 

Regina nodded. She tried to sit up and winced.

“Take it easy.” Emma helped her back into a more optimal position. “I think Henry has some X-Men comics to read to you.”

“Did I really do it?” Regina asked as he began fishing the comics out. 

“Do what?” Emma asked. 

“Use light magic?” She wanted to believe that she did. That it wasn’t part of her imagination.

“Yeah!” Henry answered for Emma. “It was amazing. I never saw light magic before, not in person.” He climbed onto the hospital bed.

“I guess that’s part of having some savior soul.” Emma added.

Regina managed a weak smile. “I can do light magic.” She carefully shifted positions. Through her sleepiness she felt a splash of warmth and maybe even joy. It seemed so incomprehensible…to be able to use light magic? 

Mary nodded, “you can.” Regina could hear the delight in her voice. She came over and handed Regina the soup.

“So how about some soup and X-Men to celebrate?” Emma asked.

On a normal day she would long for something more extravagant, something that would have really announced the achievement. But it wasn’t a normal day. She didn’t think she had, had a normal day since losing her soul the first time. And because it wasn’t normal day, and because she wasn’t who she had been before the wraith, she replied, “that sounds, lovely, Swan.”

Really, it seemed better anyways, to take the simple route. The route that truly displayed that she had a family now. That she had a lover and hope. That she had everything she didn’t know she wanted until she had finally gotten it.  
For once she had a feeling that would end okay.


End file.
